Contemporary American poet Daniel Ladinsky wrote “A Great Need” after allegedly receiving directions in a dream of 14th-century Persian poet Hafez. In his 1999 book The Gift, he says that “I saw Hafiz as an Infinite Fountaining Sun (I saw him as God), who sang hundreds of lines of his poetry to me in English, asking me to give that message to his ‘artists and seekers’” (Ladinsky, Daniel. “Preface.” The Gift: Poems. Penguin, 1999. pp. 6-7).

The Gift, which includes “A Great Need,” was not Ladinsky’s first work involving Hafez. Ladinsky published I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz and The Subject Tonight Is Love: Sixty Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz in 1996. While Ladinsky states that he set out to translate Hafez’s work from its original Farsi/Persian, he found it difficult since he did not speak the language. Instead, he states that most of his “renderings” come from studying H. Wilberforce Clarke’s 1891 English translation and Hafez’s life:

My goal is to bring across, right into your lap, the wondrous spirit of Hafiz […] I believe the ultimate gauge of success is this: Does the text free the reader? Does it contribute to our physical and emotional health? Does it put ‘golden tools’ into our hands that can help excavate the Beloved whom we and society have buried so deep? (Ladinsky, Daniel. “Preface.” The Gift: Poems, Penguin. 1999, pp. 5–7).

Ladinsky addresses these concerns in “A Great Need.” The poem features people dependent on each other to climb dangerous terrain (Lines 1-4, 7-10). The poem expresses the importance of relying on others for survival, growth, and “our physical and emotional health” (Ladinsky, Daniel. “Preface.” The Gift: Poems).

Poet Biography

Born in 1948 to a wealthy family, Ladinsky grew up in the St. Louis suburbs. He spent his youth exploring the woods and hiding in the backyard doghouse. Despite his father’s Jewish identity and his mother’s Catholic one, Ladinsky states religion did not play a huge role in his childhood. He often sought religious experiences alone or tried to convince his family to attend church more frequently.

Ladinsky did not find purpose until experiencing “sublime beauty” in an Arizona desert:

I wasn’t a serious student. After fooling around at a couple of small colleges, I enrolled at the University of Arizona when I was about twenty. I took nine hours of classes, smoked a little grass, and messed around in Mexico. I started to spend a lot of time alone. In the desert outside Tucson, I heard a persistent voice—it was nothing weird—saying, ‘What do you really want?’ (Lawler, Andrew. “Something Missing in My Heart.” The Sun Magazine, 2013).

He soon realized he felt most joy when in love and that love related to God. He then entered a “blessed state” after witnessing “sublime beauty” for the first time while in the desert.

Eventually, Ladinsky read God Speaks by famed Indian spiritual leader Meher Baba (1894-1969) and investigated his teachings. After working as a carpenter and at his father’s investment company, he realized he felt unfulfilled. He traveled to India in 1978, where he met Meher Baba’s sister and Eruch Jessawala. Ladinsky’s contact with Baba’s inner circle changed his life.

Meher Baba loved Hafez but believed no one had adequately translated his works to English. Upon learning this about the late spiritual leader, Ladinsky decided to translate the poems despite not knowing Hafez’s native language of Farsi/Persian.

Ladinsky said he met his goal by using English translations, research on the poet’s life, and alleged visitations from Hafez in Ladinsky’s dreams. Ladinsky released seven books over 21 years. He wrote I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz (1996), The Subject Tonight Is Love: Sixty Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz (1996), The Gift: Poems by Hafiz (1999), Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (2002), A Year With Hafiz: Daily Contemplations (2011), The Purity of Desire: 100 Poems of Rumi (2012), and Darling, I Love You: Poems from the Hearts of Our Glorious Mutts (2017). His work has become extremely popular with American readers. Oprah Winfrey and Rupi Kaur laud his books.

However, his work also has become controversial. Scholars point out that Ladinsky’s work shares little resemblance to Hafez’s work. Poet, translator, and editor Murat Nemet-Nejat said that none of the poems in The Gift correspond with any Hafiz poem (Nemet-Nejat, Murat. “The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master (Review).” Internet Archive). He also points out that Ladinsky did not use the Ghazal, Hafez’s received poetic form of choice. A ghazal is a non-narrative form where stanzas consist of two lines that operate independently from previous stanzas. A word repeats at the end of the first and second Lines of the first couplet. The word then appears at the end of every following couplet’s second line (Nemet-Nejat, Murat).

Dr. Aria Fani, an expert on Iranian literature, also found that Ladinsky’s “poems bear little or no resemblance to what Hafez has composed” (Fani, Aria. “Rewriting Hafez: Re-Theorizing Untranslatability in Persian Poetry.” Ajam Media Collective, Ajam Media Collective, 2020). Fani said, as a result, Ladinsky commits the literary equivalent of cultural appropriation.

Ladinsky currently lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Poem Text

Out

Of a great need

We are all holding hands

And climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

The terrain around here

Is

Far too

Dangerous

For

That.

Ladinsky, Daniel/Hafez. “A Great Need.” 1999. Academy of American Poets.

Summary

“A Great Need” begins with a mysterious speaker stating that he and other people need to hold hands and climb. Ladinsky indicates the speaker’s inclusion in this scenario and that the speaker is addressing someone through “we.”

The speaker then says that “letting go” (Line 5) reveals a lack or disappearance of love. This line implies that holding hands is an act of love. The speaker then says, “Listen” (Line 6). While the prior lines left it unclear if the poem is an internal monologue or narration, the command “listen” reveals that the speaker addresses another person. They show that the addressee belongs to the speaker’s group when they state that “The terrain around here” poses dangers.

The speaker ends by saying that the land is hazardous, giving weight to why they cannot let go of or stop caring about each other.