This lumi­nous col­lec­tion gath­ers togeth­er for the first time in Eng­lish a body of poet­ry that emerges direct­ly from the sub­lime and often star­tling world of Jew­ish mys­ti­cism. Book­list called the vol­ume ​“Resplen­dent … a daz­zling trea­sury of verse span­ning more than 1,500 years and accom­pa­nied by fas­ci­nat­ing, illu­mi­nat­ing com­men­tary rich in his­to­ry, biog­ra­phy, and lit­er­ary exper­tise.” ​“Cole brings this mate­r­i­al alive for a con­tem­po­rary read­er. This is a mar­velous book,” write Daniel Matt, author of The Essen­tial Kab­bal­ah. And schol­ar Lawrence Fine adds: ​“Stud­ded with insight, and writ­ten with great verve, this book will become a clas­sic.” Final­ly, Harold Bloom calls The Poet­ry of Kab­bal­ah ​“the crown of poet-trans­la­tor Peter Cole’s sub­lime achieve­ment.” From beloved hymns such as Lekhah Dodi to mys­te­ri­ous incan­ta­tions that chart ascent through the heav­ens, the poems in this book reveal an alter­na­tive and often erot­i­cal­ly-charged Judaism at the heart of the reli­gion itself. As a whole, the col­lec­tion brings read­ers into the fas­ci­nat­ing force­field of Jew­ish mys­ti­cism and Kab­bal­is­tic verse, where the build­ing blocks of both lan­guage and exis­tence are unveiled.