Buddhist poetry is a genre of literature that forms a part of Buddhist discourse. The first examples of Buddhist poetry can be found in traditional scriptures such as the Dhammapada, according to which, Siddhārtha Gautama (the founder of Buddhism), upon his reaching enlightenment, proclaimed: <poem style="margin-left: 2em"> Through the round of many births I roamed without reward,

seeking the house-builder. Painful is birth

House-builder, you're seen! You will not build a house again. All your rafters broken, the ridge pole destroyed, gone to the Unformed, the mind has come to the end of craving. </poem> Traditionally, most Buddhist sutras have a prose component supplemented by verses (known as gatha) that reiterate and poetically summarize the themes of preceding prose passages. Gatha functions as a mnemonic device helping the Buddhist practitioner commit to memory a certain doctrinal maxim. And in fact, the earliest extant forms of Buddhist discourse appear in verse, which is hardly surprising, considering that the texts were not originally written, but memorized. Linguistic analysis shows that the prose component of the sutras is likely to have been modified by later editing, while the poems often contain earlier forms of language.

Alan Soldofsky (born 1951) is an American poet. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, Soldofsky has published three books of poetry and has seen his work appear in many literary magazines.

Soldofsky’s published collections of poetry are Kenora Station and Staying Home. A third collection, Holding Adam/My Father’s Books, includes poems written by his son, Adam Soldofsky.

Soldofsky’s poems have appeared in The Nation, The North American Review, Antioch Review, Blue Mesa Review, Poetry East, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Greensboro Review, Grand Street, The Michigan Quarterly Review and many other noted journals. Three of his poems have been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. His critical essays and reviews have appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, Narrative, Quarry West, Ironwood, and Chelsea.

After his graduation from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Soldofsky became at a young age a contributing editor to Poetry Flash. In 1985 he joined the faculty at San Jose State University as professor of English and Comparative Literature. While at SJSU, he has directed the SJSU Center for Literary Arts and well as the San Jose Poetry Center.