It's been a few days since I read this, and I don't know if I can give a good review of it anymore.

Lalla was a 14th century Kashmir poet who decided to go naked and wander around, dancing. Her poems can strike me at first as too mystical or containing shades of new agey buddhism, or the voice can be a bit like the 'wise' voice of the poet. And indeed some of her poems are like that, which is either unfortunate, or lost in translation, or must be considered along with her entire body of work.

But a lot of her poems are more complex. The 'wise' voice cracks at times and shows vulnerability, doubt. Also, her philosophy seems reminiscent of buddhism, zen, sufism, and a few other things, but is actually quite complex and probably unique to her. I love personal philosophies, they are so much more interesting than orthodox ways of thinking along prepared lines of thought. She can talk about something in the abstract/ideal philosophy but then stick in some really interesting concrete nouns that I was not expecting.

In the following poem, I like how didactic it at first appears, but then she puts her own name in there, as if she were giving herself a pep talk! And that bit about moderation... is wisdom but so unlike wisdom afterall that it's refereshing:

When you eat too much,
you forget your truth,

and fasting makes you conceited,
so eat with some discipline,
and consciously. Be
an ordinary human being.

Then the door will open,
and you'll recognize the way.
Lalla, be moderate!

Especially interesting are the double poems here, translated as two poems but originally one poem. They hinge on a word containing two meanings, so that the poem can be read in two different ways. Here is an example, where the main pun in these two poems are "onion" and "breath":

(read as "onion")

I locked the doors and windows.
I grabbed the onion-thief
and yelled for help.

I tied him up in an inside closet
and threatened him with Om. Om.

(read as "breath")

I shut the body openings
and found out what steals

the even-breath, the truth
of Who we are. ( )