The Essential Rumi

"I don't mean to claim a special relationship with Rumi...but a poet of such astonishing range and depth needs many translators and interpreters. Mystical poetry tries to reveal the apple orchard within the mist of language (Rumi's image). I hope these translations do not thicken that fog; I hope they burn it off!..." Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi

Though he wrote his extraordinary poems over seven hundred years ago in culture far removed from our own, Persian Sufi Jelaluddin Rumi is today the most widely read poet in America. This is, of course, largely due to the fact that his poems and stories are simple and direct enough for their startling and passionate imagery to travel across such distances of culture and time, but it is also true that Rumi never would have reached such a wide American audience if his work hadn't found the perfect translator in Coleman Barks. With over ten books of Rumi translations, Barks has established himself as the foremost translator of Rumi into English. Rumi's poems in their original Persian reflect a dense musicality rarely if ever found in translation. Barks acknowledges the difference in language and uses American free verse to convey a sense of the work's simplicity. With the best of these translations beautifully collected in The Essential Rumi, in poems which are alternately ecstatic, wise, and hilarious, the prolific poet comes alive in the 20th century.

Jelaluddin Rumi was born in the year 1207 and until the age of thirty-seven was a brilliant scholar and popular teacher. But his life changed forever when he met the powerful wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz, of whom Rumi said, ?What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a human being.? From this mysterious and esoteric friendship came a new height of spiritual enlightenment.

When Shams disappeared, Rumi began his transformation from scholar to artist, and his poetry began to fly.

Today, the ecstatic poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi is more popular than ever, and Coleman Barks, through his musical and magical translations, has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to devoted followers. Now, for the first time, Barks has gathered the essential poems of Rumi and put them together in this wonderful comprehensive collection that delights with playful energy and unequaled passion.

The Essential Rumi offers the most beautiful rendering of the primary poetry of Rumi to both devoted enthusiasts and novice readers. Poems about everything from bewilderment, emptiness, and silence to flirtation, elegance, and majesty are presented with love, humor, warmth, and tenderness.

Take in the words of Jelaluddin Rumi and feel yourself transported to the magical, mystical, places of a whirling, ecstatic poet.

Brings something of the spiritual fragrance of Rumi into the contemporary American poetic medium and can service as a foretaste of the inner paradise of mystical poetry produced by that colossal figure of Sufi literature, Jalal al-Din Rumi. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University Professor of Islamic Studies

At the end of our wanderings there is only the soul's yearning to return to God. No one speaks that yearning better than Rumi. No one, these days, does Rumi better than Coleman Barks. Ram Dass

Though he wrote his extraordinary poems over seven hundred years ago in culture far removed from our own, Persian Sufi Jelaluddin Rumi is today the most widely read poet in America. This is, of course, largely due to the fact that his poems and stories are simple and direct enough for their startling and passionate imagery to travel across such distances of culture and time, but it is also true that Rumi never would have reached such a wide American audience if his work hadn't found the perfect translator in Coleman Barks. With over ten books of Rumi translations, Barks has established himself as the foremost translator of Rumi into English. With the best of these translations beautifully collected in The Essential Rumi, in poems which are alternately ecstatic, wise, and hilarious, the prolific poet comes alive in the 20th century.

This revised and expanded edition of The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.

Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.

The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling  of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.

The best-selling Rumi book ever is now better than ever! This revised and expanded edition of the comprehensive one-volume edition of America′s most popular poet includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks, and 57 new poems never published before.

The ecstatic, spiritual poetry of Rumi is more popular than ever, and The Essential Rumi continues to be far and away the top-selling title of all Rumi books. With the addition of many new poems and a new introduction, The Essential Rumi is now clearly the definitive, and most delightful selection of Rumi′s poetry.

A San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, The Essential Rumi translates the estatic poetry of the famed twelfth-century Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi".The gold of Rumi pours down through Coleman's words".--Jack Kornfield. "(A) delightful treasury".--Publishers Weekly.

Coleman Barks is one of the premier translators of Rumi at work today. He teaches poetry at the University of Georgia. He lives with his wife and two sons in Athens, Georgia.