Mystical Poems of Kabir

Swami Rama was gifted in many ways but evidently not as a translator

Try as I may, I unfortunately find absolutely nothing positive to say about this awful, trite, "jingle bells" type insult to one of the greatest poets and humans to grace our planet.If you want to read Kabir in English, go buy Robert Bly's "The Kabir Book", or Osho's series of books on Kabir, e.g. 'The Guest'. 'The Fish in the Sea is not Thirsty', etc. or even Rabindranath Tagore's dated book. There are also good insights into Kabir uploaded on YouTube by the exploratory 'The Kabir Project' - a series of videoed pilgrimages, performances, talks -e.g. "The Journey Home", "Banjara (by Maatibani)", etc. This Rama book unnecessarily forces Kabir's poems into platitudinous rhymed couplets which simply have nothing of the incisive vigour, the devotional intensity, the over-flowing joy, the juice, that I love in Kabir. For example, from this book under review -"Conforming to rules that religion does lay,Is like a baby who with its toys does play." or-""Don't wait until tomorrow, do it today,Whatever you are doing now, do it right away." etcwhich may appeal to greetings card makers, but does nothing for me!There is also content about sin and fear of God -"Punish me or forgive me..." which I find are aberrations that have no place in either Kabir or what I understand by the word, 'religion'.The layout of the book seems forced into someone's head concept of 'arty' appearance. The poem titles, I presume 'thought of' by the compiler, are set at a quarter or third of the way down the page - resulting in some poems spread awkwardly over two pages that could have harmoniously been put on one page.The Title Page mentions the translation and commentary as being by Swami Rama and Robert Regli, the Contents lists the last item, page 120, as being "About Swami Rama and Robert Regli", but the occult Mr Regli seems to have disappeared from view as the page is only about the Swami.It was a gamble to buy something unseen about my favourite poet, but I will put this book into recycling rather than give it away to charity to afflict someone else. It is not, in my opinion, worth any stars, but the minimum acceptable for a review seems to be one star, hence the regrettable rating.A pity.May you make a better choice of a book on Kabir.May you blossom and, in Kabir's words, "find the one thing that satisfies"!