A Lover's Art: The Song of Songs in Musical English Meters, plus 280 Original Love Poems in Reply--A Dialogue with Scripture (East-West Bridge Builders)

In the Bible text called “The Song of Songs, Which Is Solomon’s” we have one of the most passionate love poems ever composed, and a shining guide. Because the word “song” will imply, for most music lovers, a regular, steady rhythm with word harmonies and usually rhymes, I have versified the Authorized Version in heart-welcomed English meters with patterns of assonance, alliteration, and rhyming. King Solomon addresses loving words to an unnamed woman he calls “the Shulamite,” and in A Lover’s Art I name her Shula. Solomon also authored the biblical Proverbs, a book of wisdom, and in the 16th century arose a tradition of regarding the recipient of the love hymn as Lady Wisdom (Hokhmah, or in Greek Sophia). In stage three of this wonderful progress, Kabbalah or Jewish mystical thought has tended to equate the woman embodying wisdom to the Shekhinah, or indwelling female emanative presence of God, the vitalizing energy of the world. Invigorated by the Solomonic example, I have replied to his masterly Canticle with 280 original love lyrics. To Shula, Sophia, Shekhinah--or Woman, Wisdom, World-- dedicate this modern dialogue with my mentor in the lover’s art of song.