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The Erotic Spirit: An Anthology of Poems of Sensuality, Love, and Longing
Explores the spiritual aspects of eros through poems by Sappho, Ovid, Tzu Yeh, Li Po, Izumi Shikibu, Kabir, Anne Bradstreet, John Keats, Walt Whitman, Baudelaire, Emily Dickinson, Gioconda Belli, and Dorianne Laux
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
29 people are currently reading
341 people want to read
About the author
Sam Hamill
96 books32 followersPoet, editor, translator, and essayist, Sam Hamill is author of more than thirty books including two from BOA Editions, Gratitude (1998), and Dumb Luck(2002). He has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including ones from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, two Washington Governor’s Arts Awards, the Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing, and the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award for poetry. He co-founded Copper Canyon Press, and has worked extensively in prisons and with battered women and children.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 7, 2021
This wasn't as sexy as I thought it would be.
Not that I plunged into its pages expecting pornography. Okay, I did expect a little pornography. Actually, more than a little. Except, it was a lot more nuanced than simple pornography. Some of it was exciting, arousing even, and the rest of it was vastly disappointing.
Interestingly, I did notice that poets with Latin American and Eastern heritage/influences imbued the 'erotic spirit' into their writing in a markedly more complex and confident manner than the Western poets. Eastern and Latin American poets were a lot more lucid about their longings and the metaphorical devices they used to unravel their passions were strikingly beautiful. They also seemed a lot more comfortable with blasphemic writing, many of them eroticizing the divine and sometimes fetishizing the Gods (which was a complete turn-on by the way.)
Consider for example:
his penis a gourd into which the universe flows,
and his entry like the moment of death—
This is about Shiva - a prominent Hindu deity often referred to as "the destroyer" and these lines were penned by Maurya Simon, an American poet who studied Tamil in India and has extensively studied early Hindu and Buddhist traditions along with her own Jewish heritage.
Or consider:
“drink the wine from between my lips”
& the moon was a yod drawn on
the cover of dawn—in gold ink
These lines are by Samuel ha-Nagid, who was "vizier to the King of Granada and, for eighteen years, commander of his armies. Ha-Nagid is known in Arabic as Ismai’il ibn Nagrela. Some say it was the influence of the more accepting attitude toward homosexuality in Arabic cultures that allowed ha-Nagid, who was Jewish, to write openly of his homosexual love."
A lot of the Western poets were so dull in their writing, it almost seemed lazy. Well I guess I know where to look for erotic poetry now.
Consider:
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others,
as I and you interpenetrate now,
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them,
as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality,
I plant so lovingly now.
Ugh. Boring. And who on earth wants to be reminded of procreation while being turned on anyway? And these lines are from a poem by Walt Whitman - the quintessential American poet.
This is not to say that all poets of western heritage were boring or bad at writing erotic poetry. I loved poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Dorianne Laux and Olga Broumas. I just think there is an unmissable connection between poetry and culture that is very evident in this collection.
Not that I plunged into its pages expecting pornography. Okay, I did expect a little pornography. Actually, more than a little. Except, it was a lot more nuanced than simple pornography. Some of it was exciting, arousing even, and the rest of it was vastly disappointing.
Interestingly, I did notice that poets with Latin American and Eastern heritage/influences imbued the 'erotic spirit' into their writing in a markedly more complex and confident manner than the Western poets. Eastern and Latin American poets were a lot more lucid about their longings and the metaphorical devices they used to unravel their passions were strikingly beautiful. They also seemed a lot more comfortable with blasphemic writing, many of them eroticizing the divine and sometimes fetishizing the Gods (which was a complete turn-on by the way.)
Consider for example:
his penis a gourd into which the universe flows,
and his entry like the moment of death—
This is about Shiva - a prominent Hindu deity often referred to as "the destroyer" and these lines were penned by Maurya Simon, an American poet who studied Tamil in India and has extensively studied early Hindu and Buddhist traditions along with her own Jewish heritage.
Or consider:
“drink the wine from between my lips”
& the moon was a yod drawn on
the cover of dawn—in gold ink
These lines are by Samuel ha-Nagid, who was "vizier to the King of Granada and, for eighteen years, commander of his armies. Ha-Nagid is known in Arabic as Ismai’il ibn Nagrela. Some say it was the influence of the more accepting attitude toward homosexuality in Arabic cultures that allowed ha-Nagid, who was Jewish, to write openly of his homosexual love."
A lot of the Western poets were so dull in their writing, it almost seemed lazy. Well I guess I know where to look for erotic poetry now.
Consider:
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others,
as I and you interpenetrate now,
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them,
as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality,
I plant so lovingly now.
Ugh. Boring. And who on earth wants to be reminded of procreation while being turned on anyway? And these lines are from a poem by Walt Whitman - the quintessential American poet.
This is not to say that all poets of western heritage were boring or bad at writing erotic poetry. I loved poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Dorianne Laux and Olga Broumas. I just think there is an unmissable connection between poetry and culture that is very evident in this collection.
February 7, 2021
Eros seizes and shakes my very soul
like the wind on the mountain
shaking ancient oaks
— Sappho
*
The voice of my love is a song
leaping from hill to mountain
like a gazelle,
bounding, leaping over hills.
[...]
you are the waters of my very soul,
[...]
I would be the seal upon your heart,
— from "The Song of Songs"
*
Everything’s uncertain.
Except that my soul is burning.
— Philodemos
*
It rains on the roofs
As it rains in my poems
Under the thunder
We fit together like parts
Of a magic puzzle
— Kenneth Rexroth
like the wind on the mountain
shaking ancient oaks
— Sappho
*
The voice of my love is a song
leaping from hill to mountain
like a gazelle,
bounding, leaping over hills.
[...]
you are the waters of my very soul,
[...]
I would be the seal upon your heart,
— from "The Song of Songs"
*
Everything’s uncertain.
Except that my soul is burning.
— Philodemos
*
It rains on the roofs
As it rains in my poems
Under the thunder
We fit together like parts
Of a magic puzzle
— Kenneth Rexroth
March 22, 2024
How does one write a review of a collection with poetic, intimate works surely spanning a millennia? Each voice is a distinct composition inlaid into these pages to inspire, arouse, and make the red & beating truth of love and desire known: that they are ancient, innate things, and will eternally beckon us home.
February 5, 2017
The Erotic Spirit is the compilation book of things considered as "Erotic" poems. I love it because the language they are using to explain things are easy and understandable.I do love it also because the eroticism they portray in this book may carry different interpretation as well as different reflection. This poem for instance; it carries a reflection and question to myself;
PEEKING IN THROUGH BY PRAXILLA
"Peeking in through
the open window,
your face was
virginal.
But you were
all woman
below."
1. I do not know why this poem brings me more and more question or reflection about who women are, their beauty and their wonderful power.
2. I have been asking myself what it is being a woman? For centuries, women have been the object, a commodity, things to display, a property, a great symbol of eroticism. However, is one being called as a woman when she has a vagina? or once one hears the vaginal things, they do relate them to a woman and being a woman?
3. Is being a woman only limited to vaginal things? One has ever said that being a man is difficult as they should be the head, they should work harder et al. Without belittle men's power, has one ever had a thought how difficult it is to be a woman? How hard it is to carry these two dangly breasts! How painful it is to go through monthly period. One cannot imagine how hurt it is to have the first sexual intercourse, how heavy it is to carry a baby for nine months, to bear the baby and to raise them. Most women go through that heavy phases. One should see how beautiful and powerful it is to be a woman,yet, why are women still stigmatised? why do people often see women as a weak creature...fragile...? why do people exploit them? why do people call them as "amoral slut" when they sleep around and refer a man as a "grande stud" once he does they same? Same amorality- if that is what it says but why different?
4. For centuries, most men stare at my lady friends' breasts instead of starring at their eyes. Pinching their butts instead of shaking their hands. So, I do really think that I do often have the divine right, to stare at (most) male's back with low cheap appreciation if I want to, right?
See? some poems may carry their reflection, questions and their own interpretations. I wish that there would be another edition with the illustrations of its poem.
Cheers and beers,
Desca
4 stars out of 5
PEEKING IN THROUGH BY PRAXILLA
"Peeking in through
the open window,
your face was
virginal.
But you were
all woman
below."
1. I do not know why this poem brings me more and more question or reflection about who women are, their beauty and their wonderful power.
2. I have been asking myself what it is being a woman? For centuries, women have been the object, a commodity, things to display, a property, a great symbol of eroticism. However, is one being called as a woman when she has a vagina? or once one hears the vaginal things, they do relate them to a woman and being a woman?
3. Is being a woman only limited to vaginal things? One has ever said that being a man is difficult as they should be the head, they should work harder et al. Without belittle men's power, has one ever had a thought how difficult it is to be a woman? How hard it is to carry these two dangly breasts! How painful it is to go through monthly period. One cannot imagine how hurt it is to have the first sexual intercourse, how heavy it is to carry a baby for nine months, to bear the baby and to raise them. Most women go through that heavy phases. One should see how beautiful and powerful it is to be a woman,yet, why are women still stigmatised? why do people often see women as a weak creature...fragile...? why do people exploit them? why do people call them as "amoral slut" when they sleep around and refer a man as a "grande stud" once he does they same? Same amorality- if that is what it says but why different?
4. For centuries, most men stare at my lady friends' breasts instead of starring at their eyes. Pinching their butts instead of shaking their hands. So, I do really think that I do often have the divine right, to stare at (most) male's back with low cheap appreciation if I want to, right?
See? some poems may carry their reflection, questions and their own interpretations. I wish that there would be another edition with the illustrations of its poem.
Cheers and beers,
Desca
4 stars out of 5
February 1, 2024
Absolutely loved these poems!
July 9, 2017
The ancient poems are the best, of course. I've always loved Chinese and Japanese love poetry in particular, and there are plenty of those here, in addition to some surprising offerings like a haunting poem by an anonymous Somali woman. Overall, excellent anthology. Things slide a bit when it comes to the modern poems, as may be expected.
Normally I read all prefaces, forewords, introductions, etc., and encourage others to do the same, but don't waste your time with Sam Hamill's preface. He comes to the conclusion that there is a spiritual component to erotic love as if this is new information, as if this will surprise anyone who's ever been in love, lost love, or dreamed of love. He doesn't really introduce the material. But read the poems, they're great.
Normally I read all prefaces, forewords, introductions, etc., and encourage others to do the same, but don't waste your time with Sam Hamill's preface. He comes to the conclusion that there is a spiritual component to erotic love as if this is new information, as if this will surprise anyone who's ever been in love, lost love, or dreamed of love. He doesn't really introduce the material. But read the poems, they're great.
April 26, 2021
Reading this while the full moon is in Scorpio. Beautiful, sensual energy, ancient erotic poems. Life is perfect.
January 13, 2025
A touching, intimate conversation with the dead. While no individual writing was life changing, the experience of reading was continually joyus, and only rarely mundane.
I wish I could give more - however, truth be told, I doubt I will remember much of it. I didn't find any writing extraordinarily titillating, nor deeply resonant.
I do not know if this is more a remark on curation or on what history survived - but I must rate as I read.
However, I would recommend it to most anyone as a breezy weekend read.
I wish I could give more - however, truth be told, I doubt I will remember much of it. I didn't find any writing extraordinarily titillating, nor deeply resonant.
I do not know if this is more a remark on curation or on what history survived - but I must rate as I read.
However, I would recommend it to most anyone as a breezy weekend read.
March 9, 2021
The poems are arranged in chronological order of the author's lives and span from ancient to modern. My favorite thing about this book is the variety of the poems chosen to be included. The types of poems, the subjects and cultures represented seemed to do a decent job of covering a broad range and makes a great jumping off point for further exploration.
December 31, 2022
Fab collection of sexy intimate poetry from the ancients to contemporaries, spanning various ethnicities. Wish there were more African poets (beyond Egypt), more modern poets, more women, more queers. But beautiful selection nonetheless, with admirable diversity of voices already
May 23, 2022
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is, or what “God’s fragrance” means, lean your head toward him or her. Keep your face there close.
Like this.
— Jelaluddin Rumi
Like this.
— Jelaluddin Rumi
Read
October 18, 2022last poem fucked me up 10/10
April 8, 2023
idk what i expected tbh
November 30, 2024
Not all winners and a lot of selections more about romance, but some lovely poems, most of which I haven’t read before.
March 20, 2025
Everyone who enjoys love and sex and poetry should read this collection.
May 27, 2025
An eclectic and highly readable collection of erotic poetry covering ancient to modern times.
November 23, 2014
Most poetry collections tend to lean rather heavily on the 18th and 19th century British poets to the exclusion of anywhere and anywhen else. Shambala, not surprisingly, serves up a heaping helping from across the globe: Herrick's paean to disabille rubs cheeks with an Inuit poem, which itself sits next to a lay from a Mongol poet. (Now there's something you don't see every day.) The very breadth and scope of this collection makes up for a certain inconsistency of quality which might otherwise prove fatal. Those seeking turtledoves and doily hearts best beware: this is not love poetry, so dewey-eyed romantics need not apply.
October 11, 2016
A thoughtfully compiled collection of erotic poetry through the ages with well-chosen translations. A good introduction to poets from around the world. These are classic works, so expect them to represent the age from which they come and demonstrate the style the poet worked in. While some poems may be more subjectively appealing than others, the diversity in perspective, type of poetry, imagery, and subject of the poems is intriguing and eye-opening.
July 30, 2014
crap.
Another book someone left in my Apt. that I felt the need to read so I could remove it from my to-reads shelf once and for all. Immature lusty verses. Goodness gracious. This is the kind of stuff teenagers giggle about.
Please people, stop leaving shitty books in my apt.!! ..sheez
Another book someone left in my Apt. that I felt the need to read so I could remove it from my to-reads shelf once and for all. Immature lusty verses. Goodness gracious. This is the kind of stuff teenagers giggle about.
Please people, stop leaving shitty books in my apt.!! ..sheez
September 25, 2014
Very good book and nicely organized. There is a wide range of poetry from different centuries which give the reader a portrait of word usage for how language has changed and stayed the same. If you enjoy simple but detailed beauty then I'm sure you will enjoy this anthology.
April 8, 2015
With anthologies like this, you have to expect that some poems will really be great, and others will be a bore to read. I was introduced to some lovely poetry that I never otherwise would have come across, and for that I am thankful.
October 7, 2016
Erotic anthology
In this anthology you'll find ancient and modern poets from around the world. The only thing is that I would have liked an extended selection of contemporary poets.
In this anthology you'll find ancient and modern poets from around the world. The only thing is that I would have liked an extended selection of contemporary poets.
January 30, 2010
Almost forgot about this one! Read it awhile back - probably the best collection of these types of poems.
June 17, 2013
A great anthology...some of the poems are so tender and beautiful in their longing and sadness. A must for poem lovers.
October 12, 2021
"To understand the head, investigate as well the tail." --The Yellow Emperor
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews