The Essential Rumi (Essential (Booksales))
by Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi
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Read in January, 2001
recommends it for:
everyone
I keep a copy of the Essential Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks) with me, everywhere I go. My copy, given to me in 2001, has travelled the world with me. I read a poem a day, although sometimes it's a poem every other day. I discovered Rumi through a great book given to me by my mother: The Language of Life, a Companion Book to the Bill Moyers' PBS special about poets alive today... Coleman Barks, a premiere Rumi translator, was among the poets interviewed..... I first fell in love with this quattrain...more
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I imagine that many will wonder why my opinion of this book is so low. The answer, mainly, is that Barks is not really translating Rumi here; instead he is improvising, creating his own versions of what he thinks Rumi is about, which often results in a deracinated version of Rumi's original work. My own experience in talking to Iranians, and others, who know Rumi's work in the original, often by heart, is that it is often impossible to find, using one of Barks' poems, the original from which Bar...more
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Read in May, 2002
I wanted to quote some verses from this book, but each line was made more beautiful by the one before it, and the one before that, until I’d have to include the whole book. And yet somehow the reverse effect is also true, in which the entirety of the mystic and divine collected in these pages is reflected in every word. Rumi writes: “The study of this book will be painful to those who feel separate from God.” But to read any one of these poems is to erase that separation completely. You th...more
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There is a poem in here which is wish I could find; this book is a grove of rhododendrons and laurels and one can easily get lost in it. Perhaps someone remembers this poem- there is an image of a person who thinks too much and has the creases between their eyebrows. Rumi says to them something like "let me smooth them out with my finger" or "smooth the creases in your brow". Is that too ambiguous?
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Read in January, 2006
Miraculous. I learn something new every time I open this book. The image that sticks to mind if how we should try to emulate a reed flute and let God's breath flow through us. I've stopped being religious when I stopped going to church when I was 16 but reading Rumi's writings is probably the closest I am to religion right now.
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I learned that people like dezengo are out there and that we share these books as 6th sensory beings who look at the present through a rear-view mirror. Then we march backwards into the future doing yoga. Rumi poems become moves that the eternal soul breakdances with, the ego becomes the cardboard on the cement, and each moment of compassion is a backspin. Some of us have done a lot of inner work in past lives and do backspin into windmill, into 1990, into baby walks, into shuffles going left w...more
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While some level the charge that the Barks translations lose something essential in the mix, the poetry presented here has an impressive immediacy that inspires on several levels. Read them along with other translations.
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one of my Goodfriends "Friends" has rated this book 2 stars and explains this by saying he thinks the translator has taken huge liberties with the original, Rumi, that is.
So, my rating's based on the book as it is and the belief that it's real (like you believe a movie's real....)
The danger of reading this sort of poetry (Whitman is another glaring example) is that you can so easily get caught up in the ecstasy of it. You can get drunk on it. And you can believe anything is po...more
So, my rating's based on the book as it is and the belief that it's real (like you believe a movie's real....)
The danger of reading this sort of poetry (Whitman is another glaring example) is that you can so easily get caught up in the ecstasy of it. You can get drunk on it. And you can believe anything is po...more
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Read in September, 2008
I'm not sure what quirk of personality has led me to find the most exquisite expressions of how I feel about people, life, the universe, and the meaning of everything in the poetry of ancient Sufi mystics, but time and again, I find myself turning to either Daniel Ladinsky's translations of Hafiz, or Coleman Barks' translations of Rumi for inspiration. The back cover of this book has a good quip on Barks' skill: "His ear for the truly divine madness in Rumi's poetry is remarkable." Rum...more
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The has to be my second favorite book of poetry. Rumi was less of a poet I believe, and more a vessel of grace; the messages, parables, imagery, and lyrical quality of his work makes me think much of the Psalms. Coleman Barks' translations are exquisite. I've read many different translations of Rumi, and none are as strong, brilliant, and seem to breathe with love as his. It seems that Barks was specifically chosen to be spoken through by this 12th century Sufi. I had the great pleasure to meet ...more
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Read in June, 2008
Last weekend I went on a spiritual retreat and sat in a tent in the woods by myself for three days; the only book I brought with me was this one and I read it all. It was the first time since early January that I felt alive and whole and in love with the divine. Next time I'm feeling crazy and have gotten lost in the delusional maze of the small self, remind me to go sit in the woods alone until I find my way home.
Rumi says,
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. T...more
Rumi says,
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. T...more
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the essential rumi is a more than worthy introduction to the enchanted spiritual poetics of jalaluddin rumi.[return:][return:]rumi s famed mad dancing and his inspired utterances of pure genius gave birth to a major religious order known today as the whirling dervishes. his writings have influenced not only persian literature but world literature and world spirituality. his richly inspired work has been translated and published in languages all over the globe. in english alone, there are more t...more
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Read in January, 1998
recommends it for:
everyone
"The design of this book is meant to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories...The mind wants categories, but Rumi's creativity was a continuous fountain." Barks says this at the very beginning of the book. I believe Rumi would want scholars to be confused. With this statement Barks had me in his hands before I read the first poem, and then it just got better and better. I'm not knowledgeable about meter and all that. I just like the way these read....more
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The book of poems I turn to for inspiration..joy..understanding..Rumi is my absolute favorite poet. one of my recent favorite quotes: 'birds make great sky-circles with their wings. how do they learn to do it? they fall-and falling, they grow wings'.
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Note: my copy looks like this except the title is actually "Selected Poems" rather than "The Essential Rumi."
I love this book--I keep it and another Rumi on my bedside table and read a bit every so often, in a slow and, I admit, more intuitive than careful/scholarly way. I have seen a lot of both criticism and praise of Coleman Barks' and others' translations/interpretations of Rumi's work, so that I always have the sense of a very filtered experience of the poems when re...more
I love this book--I keep it and another Rumi on my bedside table and read a bit every so often, in a slow and, I admit, more intuitive than careful/scholarly way. I have seen a lot of both criticism and praise of Coleman Barks' and others' translations/interpretations of Rumi's work, so that I always have the sense of a very filtered experience of the poems when re...more
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Just a genius like Rumi could do this to Persian language. He created Persian once more with the sound of music coming from the repetition of words. The translated version of Rumi doesn't convey the power of music in Rumi's poetry as he was a great musician of words . He developed the thoughts of sufism in poetry and the unity of words in a circle turning and turning... He developed the sense of exaggerated grief in mystic poetry to ecstasy... as a Persian poet I always read it and say the poems...more
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Essential is a good word for the title of this anthology. This collection of Rumi's work is so complete. I usually skip around in poetry anthologies, but here the verses are organized into playful groupings that refer to one another subtlety but completely. I didn't expect to find myself reacting and relating to a Muslim poet from the 13th century the way that I did, but he transcends any barrier that would inhibit the relevance of his words.
Try to find the version with Huston Smith's i...more
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