Who is Coleman Barks, Rumi translator and poet
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Famous rumi translator
Coleman Barks (born 1937) is an American poet. Although he neither speaks nor reads Persian, he is nonetheless renowned as an interpreter of Rumi and other mystic poets of Persia.
Barks is a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He attended the University of North Carolina and the University of California, Berkeley. Barks taught literature at the University of Georgia for three decades. He currently lives in Athens, Georgia, where he interprets the writings of Rumi and composes poetry of his own.
Barks makes frequent international appearances and is well-known throughout the Middle East. Barks' work has contributed to an extremely strong following of Rumi in the English-speaking world. Due to his work, the ideas of Sufism have crossed many cultural boundaries over the past few decades. Coleman Barks received an honorary doctorate from Tehran University in 2006.
He has also read his original poetry at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
In March 2009 Barks was inducted to the Georgia Writers' Hall of Fame.
Barks has published several volumes of Rumi's poetry since 1976, including The Hand of Poetry, Five Mystic Poets of Persia in 1993, The Essential Rumi in 1995 and The Book of Love in 2003.
Barks does not speak Persian, but bases his translations entirely on other English translations of Rumi. This includes translations by John Moyne. In addition, while the original Persian poetry of Rumi is heavily rhymed and metered, Barks has used primarily free verse. In some instances, he will also mix lines and metaphors from different poems into one 'translation'.
Barks has published several volumes of his own poetry, including Gourd Seed, Tentmaking, and, in 2001, Granddaughter Poems, a collection of Coleman's poetry about his granddaughter, Briny Barks, with illustrations by Briny. Harper published his first book of poetry, The Juice, in 1972.
Image source, August 2010
Biographical information
Barks is a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He attended the University of North Carolina and the University of California, Berkeley. Barks taught literature at the University of Georgia for three decades. He currently lives in Athens, Georgia, where he interprets the writings of Rumi and composes poetry of his own.
Barks makes frequent international appearances and is well-known throughout the Middle East. Barks' work has contributed to an extremely strong following of Rumi in the English-speaking world. Due to his work, the ideas of Sufism have crossed many cultural boundaries over the past few decades. Coleman Barks received an honorary doctorate from Tehran University in 2006.
He has also read his original poetry at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
In March 2009 Barks was inducted to the Georgia Writers' Hall of Fame.
Barks has published several volumes of Rumi's poetry since 1976, including The Hand of Poetry, Five Mystic Poets of Persia in 1993, The Essential Rumi in 1995 and The Book of Love in 2003.
Barks does not speak Persian, but bases his translations entirely on other English translations of Rumi. This includes translations by John Moyne. In addition, while the original Persian poetry of Rumi is heavily rhymed and metered, Barks has used primarily free verse. In some instances, he will also mix lines and metaphors from different poems into one 'translation'.
Barks has published several volumes of his own poetry, including Gourd Seed, Tentmaking, and, in 2001, Granddaughter Poems, a collection of Coleman's poetry about his granddaughter, Briny Barks, with illustrations by Briny. Harper published his first book of poetry, The Juice, in 1972.
Image source, August 2010
Biographical information
Bibliography
Please let me know about any books by Coleman Barks I missed.
The Essential Rumi
1997
The first book of Rumi quotes and poetry that Coleman Barks translated. It lead to a career of Rumi rendition.
The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition
Amazon Price: $9.08 (as of 02/14/2012)
List Price: $15.99
Used Price: $6.08
The Illuminated Rumi
1997
"Rumi has, to the recent amazement of many people in the Western culture as well as the Islamic culture, been able to speak directly to contemporary readers. One of the greatest pieces of good luck that has happened recently in American poetry is Coleman Barks's agreement to translate poem after poem of Rumi. Rumi, like Kabir, is able to contain and continue intricate theological arguments and at the same time speak directly from the heart or to the heart.
Coleman's exquisite sensitivity to the flavor and turns of ordinary American speech has produced marvelous lines, full of flavor and Sufi humor, as well as the intimacy that is carried inside American speech at its best."
--Robert Bly
Coleman's exquisite sensitivity to the flavor and turns of ordinary American speech has produced marvelous lines, full of flavor and Sufi humor, as well as the intimacy that is carried inside American speech at its best."
--Robert Bly
Open Secret: Versions of Rumi
1999
"Felicitous new translations of Rumi, the witty and mystical Villon-like poet... These reflections on love, the dance of selves, happiness, acceptance of life's sorrows, and the transitory nature of joy are touchingly sensitive in their search for philosophical peace of mind."- Library Journal.
The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
2002
When Rumi was born in Afghanistan in 1207, it was a time of tremendous political turmoil in the Near East. Paradoxically, it was also a time of "brilliant mystical awareness," writes translator Coleman Barks in The Soul of Rumi. This brilliance shines through in every passage, as Barks celebrates the ecstatic nature of Rumi's poetry.
Barks (The Essential Rumi) has been given much credit for leading modern Westerners to this astounding poet. His sensitivity to the reader is evidenced in how he organizes the poetry according to themes. Since Rumi is often quoted at public gatherings, such as weddings and memorial services, this makes referencing especially easy. In the section entitled "When Friend Meets Friend," readers find the poem "The Soul's Friend": The most living moment comes when those who love each other meet each other's eyes and in what flows between them then. To see your face in a crowd of others, or alone on a frightening street, I weep for that.
Barks offers a gracefully rendered introduction to each section, providing personal and historical background of the poetry. Elegantly designed and printed on cream-colored, heavy-stock paper, this is a delight for Rumi fans.
Barks (The Essential Rumi) has been given much credit for leading modern Westerners to this astounding poet. His sensitivity to the reader is evidenced in how he organizes the poetry according to themes. Since Rumi is often quoted at public gatherings, such as weddings and memorial services, this makes referencing especially easy. In the section entitled "When Friend Meets Friend," readers find the poem "The Soul's Friend": The most living moment comes when those who love each other meet each other's eyes and in what flows between them then. To see your face in a crowd of others, or alone on a frightening street, I weep for that.
Barks offers a gracefully rendered introduction to each section, providing personal and historical background of the poetry. Elegantly designed and printed on cream-colored, heavy-stock paper, this is a delight for Rumi fans.
The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
Amazon Price: $9.98 (as of 02/14/2012)
Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
2003
The Sufi mystic Rumi has sold more than half a million volumes of his poetry-no small feat, considering that he lived in the 13th century. In this collection, poet Coleman Barks offers a funny, iconoclastic preface in which he attempts to tease out the reasons for Rumi's contemporary renaissance. He also warns readers that what follows will not be a pretty, happy book of love poetry: "This is not Norman Vincent Peale urging cheerfulness, conventional morality, and soft-focus, white-light, feel-good...New Age tantric energy exchange. This is giving your life to the one within that you know as LORD, which is a totally private matter." Rumi, he writes, is not the stuff of greeting cards. The poetry, accessibly translated and arranged by Barks, is organized by loose themes such as love's discipline, the new life with the beloved, "sudden wholeness," and love's excess.
Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
Amazon Price: $14.01 (as of 02/14/2012)
Selected Poems (Penguin Classics 2004)
by: Jelaluddin Rumi
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.
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.
Rumi: Selected Poem (Penguin Classics)
Amazon Price: $5.33 (as of 02/14/2012)
The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, the Father of Rumi
2005
Although a popular Islamic mystic who remains important to many Sufi sects, Bahauddin is known to the West primarily as the father of the thirteenth-century poet Rumi, interest in whose work has been revived by Coleman Barks' translations. Reminiscent of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, Bahauddin's writing in The Drowned Book is a miscellany that shows Bahauddin jumping from gardening tips to meditations on Qur'anic verses to quasi-erotic explorations of the Sufi's efforts to find unity with God.
Readers unfamiliar with Islamic history and Sufi practice will wish the translators had included more explanatory commentary, but the translation itself is engaging and colloquial. The bits of Bahauddin's poetry included (e.g., "Why say autumn is the end of loving? / For us there will be another spring") are a far cry from Rumi's, but Bahauddin's prose reflects the mystical core of Sufi faith and constitutes an excellent example of nonpoetic Sufi writing. Readers interested in the Sufism behind Rumi's poems will find much to enjoy here. John Green
Readers unfamiliar with Islamic history and Sufi practice will wish the translators had included more explanatory commentary, but the translation itself is engaging and colloquial. The bits of Bahauddin's poetry included (e.g., "Why say autumn is the end of loving? / For us there will be another spring") are a far cry from Rumi's, but Bahauddin's prose reflects the mystical core of Sufi faith and constitutes an excellent example of nonpoetic Sufi writing. Readers interested in the Sufism behind Rumi's poems will find much to enjoy here. John Green
The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, the Father of Rumi
Amazon Price: $16.26 (as of 02/14/2012)
A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings
2006
Coleman Barks has played a central role in making the Sufi mystic Rumi the most popular poet in the world. A Year with Rumi brings together 365 of Barks's elegant and beautiful translations of Rumi's greatest poems, including fifteen never-before-published poems.
Barks includes an Introduction that sets Rumi in his context and an Afterword musing on poetry of the mysterious and the sacred. Join Coleman Barks and Rumi for a year-long journey into the mystical and sacred within and without. Join them in recognizing and embracing the divine in the sublime, in the ordinary, and in us all.
Barks includes an Introduction that sets Rumi in his context and an Afterword musing on poetry of the mysterious and the sacred. Join Coleman Barks and Rumi for a year-long journey into the mystical and sacred within and without. Join them in recognizing and embracing the divine in the sublime, in the ordinary, and in us all.
A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings
Amazon Price: $12.37 (as of 02/14/2012)
Rumi: Bridge to the Soul: Journeys into the Music and Silence of the Heart
2007
2007 is the "Year of Rumi," and who better than Coleman Barks, Rumi's unlikely, supremely passionate ambassador, to mark the milestone of this great poet's 800th birthday? Barks, who was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in Persian language and literature by the University of Tehran for his thirty years of translating Rumi, has collected and translated ninety new poems, most of them never published before in any form. The result is this beautiful edition titled Rumi: Bridge to the Soul.
The "bridge" in the title is a reference to the Khajou Bridge in Isphahan, Iran, which Barks visited with Robert Bly in May of 2006-a trip that in many ways prompted this book. The "soul bridge" also suggests Rumi himself, who crosses cultures and religions and brings us all together to listen to his words, regardless of origin or creed. Open this book and let Rumi's poetry carry you into the interior silence and joy of the spirit, the place that unites conscious knowing with a deeper, more soulful understanding.
The "bridge" in the title is a reference to the Khajou Bridge in Isphahan, Iran, which Barks visited with Robert Bly in May of 2006-a trip that in many ways prompted this book. The "soul bridge" also suggests Rumi himself, who crosses cultures and religions and brings us all together to listen to his words, regardless of origin or creed. Open this book and let Rumi's poetry carry you into the interior silence and joy of the spirit, the place that unites conscious knowing with a deeper, more soulful understanding.
Rumi: Bridge to the Soul: Journeys into the Music and Silence of the Heart
Amazon Price: $7.98 (as of 02/14/2012)
Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008 (A Brown Thrasher Books Original)
2008
"Barks is a master of the complicated human poem. Some poets open their poems to what is Significant. Barks sets down the remarks that a waitress said to him one night in a late-night restaurant. There is a great unfolding of the world here." --Robert Bly
Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008 (A Brown Thrasher Books Original)
Amazon Price: $2.85 (as of 02/14/2012)
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The Illuminated Rumi by Jalal Al-Din Rumi
Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey to the ocean of meanings...
In the mid-thirteenth century, in a dusty marketplace in Konya, Turkey, a city where Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist travelers mingled, Jelaluddin Rumi, a popular philosopher and scholar, met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering dervish. Their meeting forever altered the course of Rumi's life and influenced the mystical evolution of the planet. The bond they formed was everlasting--a powerful transcendent friendship...
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The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems by Coleman Barks
"Inside a lover's heart there's another world, and yet another."
Rumi's delightful yet profound poems have inspired countless people throughout the centuries, and Coleman Barks's exquisite renderings of the thirteenth-century Persian mystic are widely considered the definitive versions for our time. Barks's translations capture the inward exploration and intensity that characterize Rumi's poetry, making this unique voice of mysticism and desire contemporary while remaining tr...
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Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing by Coleman Barks
I hear nothing in my ear
but your voice.
Heart has plundered mind
of its eloquence.
Love writes a transparent
calligraphy, so on
the empty page my soul
can read and recollect.
The Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi is most beloved for his poems expressing the ecstasies and mysteries of love in all its forms -- erotic, platonic, divine -- and Coleman Ba...
0 points
A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings by Coleman Barks
Coleman Barks has played a central role in making the Sufi mystic Rumi the most popular poet in the world. A Year with Rumi brings together 365 of Barks's elegant and beautiful translations of Rumi's greatest poems, including fifteen never-before-published poems.
Barks includes an Introduction that sets Rumi in his context and an Afterword musing on poetry of the mysterious and the sacred. Join Coleman Barks and Rumi for a year-long journey into...
0 points
Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) by Jelaluddin Rumi
Thirteenth-century Persian philosopher, mystic, scholar and founder of the order of the Whirling Dervishes, Jelaluddin Rumi was also a poet of transcendental power. His inspirational verse speaks with the universal voice of the human soul and brims with exuberant energy and passion. Rich in natural imagery from horses to fishes, flowers to birds and rivers to stars, the poems have an elemental force that has remained undiminished through the centuries. Their themes - tolerance, goodness, the exp...0 points
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Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship
Amazon Price: $13.74 (as of 02/14/2012)
