“I Want Both of Us” by Hafiz

Doublures of an 1842 copy of The Divān of Hafiz; on the right Hafiz offers his work to a patron (Wikimedia Commons)

Amanda Holmes reads Hafiz’s “I Want Both of Us,” rendered into English by Daniel Ladinsky. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.

This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. “I Want Both of Us” is excerpted from the Penguin publication The Gift: Poems by Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky, copyright 1999.

Amanda Holmes, the author of the novel I Know Where I Am When I’m Falling, is a columnist and poetry editor for the Washington Independent Review of Books.