From the premier interpreter of Rumi comes the first definitive one-volume collection of the enduringly popular spiritual poetry by the extraordinary thirteenth-century Sufi mystic.
No translator could do greater justice to the gorgeous simplicity of Rumi's poetry than Coleman Barks has done here. These exquisite renderings of the 13th-century Persian mystic's words into American free verse capture all the "inner searching, the delicacy, and simple groundedness" that characterize Rumi's poetry while remaining faithful to the images, tone, and spiritual message of the originals. Barks's introductions to each of the 27 sections (described as "playful palimpsests spread over Rumi's imagination," and "meant to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories") are themselves wonderful achievements of a poetic imagination; searching explanations of unfamiliar concepts and funny stories provide colorful background and frame the selections as no dry historical exegesis could.

While Barks's stamp on this collection is clear, it in no way interferes with the poems themselves; Rumi's voice leaps off these pages with an ecstatic energy that leaves readers breathless. There are poems of love, rage, sadness, pleading, and longing; passionate outbursts about the torture of longing for his beloved and the sweet pleasure that comes from their union; amusing stories of sexual exploits or human weakness; and quiet truths about the beauty and variety of human emotion. More than anything, Rumi makes plain the unbridled joy that comes from living life fully, urging us always to put aside our fears and take the risk to do so. As he says: "The way of love is not / a subtle argument. / The door there is devastation. / Birds make great sky-circles / of their freedom. / How do they learn it? / They fall, and falling, / they're given wings." --Uma Kukathas

Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Comment: I love to pick this book up on any given day and just read a random page for some inspiration.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: You may enjoy these books
Comment: If you are a deep material reader then you will really enjoy Rumi & Self Psychology (Psychology of Tranquility) and Sara's Therapy: A Way to Purity. These books are unique, easy to read, full of information, and just amazing; and you can not put them down.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Nothing Essential
Comment: If you are looking for a true Rumi experience then you shouldn't read this collection of his poems, well actully it's not even his poems any longer since Coleman Barks translation has taken away what's truly essential about reading Rumi.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Real Men Read Rumi
Comment: Real men drink beer from bottles, stand by their buddies in bar fights, and read Rumi (though would not brag about it).
This is probably the best of the collection and when my hormones are raging, reading Rumi instantly calms and brings me back to my senses. Not a big art lover, but if books are art, this is a Mona Lisa.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: this is a transcendence, not a 'translation'
Comment: don't get hung up on the hang ups of scholars and other strait-jacket types. this stuff is rumi translated, not literally, but soulfully. and that method usually fails.

not here.

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