How do you review a book that leaves you speechless? The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse, edited by Kaveh Akbar, is one of those anthologies that connect conversation between souls across centuries. It gathers 110 poems that have moved, challenged, and illuminated the editor’s own life and now, generously, some of mine too.

What makes this collection especially beautiful is its openness. It doesn’t lean into a single belief system or religious perspective. Instead, it offers a wide, compassionate lens through which to view the unknowable: our longing, our questions, our awe. Akbar invites the readers into a space where doubt and devotion sit side by side, and where the mysterious territory between them feels not only welcome but necessary.

I truly struggled to find the right words for this review, because no description feels like it could do justice to the beauty within these pages. But I can share a few of the poems that especially resonated with me below.

My Favorite Bits

Things I Want Decided by Izumi Shikibu

Which shouldn’t exist
in this world,
the one who forgets
or the one
who is forgotten?

Which is better,
to love
one who has died
or not to see
each other when you are alive?

Which is better,
the distant lover
you long for
or the one you see daily
without desire?

Which is the least unreliable
among fickle things—
the swift rapids,
a flowing river,
or this human world?

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The Grass Cried Out by Saadi Shirazi

Discovering a bouquet of freshly-cut roses
set in a vase with long grass, I asked,
‘Why are these roses set here among filthy weeds?’

The grass cried out:
‘Quiet! Our presence
doesn’t dull their fragrance!
Maybe we don’t smell as sweet as roses,
but we too grew inside God’s garden.’

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The Mind of Absolute Trust by Seng-ts’an

The Great isn’t difficult
     for those who are unattached to their preferences.
Let go of longing and aversion,
     and everything will be perfectly clear.
When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction,
     heaven and earth are set apart.
If you want to realize the truth,
     don’t be for or against.
The struggle between good and evil
     is the primal disease of the mind.
Not grasping the deeper meaning,
     you just trouble your mind’s serenity.
As vast as infinite space,
     it is perfect and lacks nothing.
But because you select and reject,
     you can’t perceive its true nature.
Don’t get entangled in the world;
     don’t lose yourself in emptiness.
Be at peace in the oneness of things,
     and all errors will disappear by themselves.

(..)

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Things I Didn’t Know I Loved by Nazim Hikmet

it’s 1962 March 28th
I’m sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain
I don’t like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn’t know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn’t worked the earth love it
I’ve never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

and here I’ve loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can’t wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you’ll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
                         and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before
                         and will be said after me

(..)

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Author: Kaveh Akbar

Publication date: 26 August 2022

Number of pages: 400 pages

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