The Conference of the Birds

Gr 4–6—Lumbard presents a greatly condensed version of this masterpiece of Sufi poetry and mystical literature. A full-page foreword explains that the original poem, by renowned 12th-century Persian poet Farid al-Din Attar, contains more than 4000 verses written in rhyming couplets. Lumbard's retelling is part narration, part poetry. The religiosity of the story is evident from the beginning. In it, the hoopoe, described as a bird with "a sacred prayer inscribed upon her beak," urges a large gathering of birds to follow her on the lengthy journey to find their King, Simorgh the Wise. Some birds want to leave the group-one is too tired; another too lazy; a third scared of a brewing storm. The hoopoe coaxes them on. Just 30 birds reach the King's sacred mountain, only to discover that He "is not an earthly thing,/[but] the King of all the heavens/and all found here below." The hoopoe speaks of weakness inside each individual, great rewards that result from hardships, and the need to be pure-hearted and free of sin. Each of Demi's golden-bordered paintings features a central story-related illustration surrounded by many tiny likenesses of one or more avian species in flight. Peter Sis's lengthier, elegantly formatted, more sophisticated and mystical pictorial version of The Conference of the Birds (Penguin, 2011) has greatly condensed text, but contains additional sections of the original mystical tale and the conclusion that Simorgh resides in every creature-that Attar's story is the story of humanity.Susan Scheps, formerly at Shaker Heights Public Library, OH