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Dec 17, 2009

Erin rated it:

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...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Mads rated it:

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.

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

Richard rated it:

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...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2010

Feral rated it:

Again, a translator brought the text alive for me. Barks is, himself, a poet and his translations are more like interpretations. I think it is the only way to go with translating poetry. The translator must essentially make a new poem in the new language for it to work. I became a Rumi-aholic, but rarely stray from Barks translations.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2009

claire rated it:

This is always by my bed--when I haven't returned it to the library again--because it gracefully and fiercely reminds me of what it means to be alive, to long for truth and love, to open my heart again and again even when the wind is blowing wickedly all around me.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2008

Steve rated it:

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.

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2008

Kurt rated it:

This is a book I return to again and again. I play a game with this book, and, I admit it sounds ridiculous...I will concentrate on a problem or a situation, then open the book randomly to a page and start reading; something in the poem that I selected will have some relevance to the thought at hand. Of course, it has to do with my interpretation of the situation, but it always lends itself to deeper thought, or it will allow me to be able to gain some fresh insight into the problem. Basically, More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 15, 2008

Sarah rated it:

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...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2008

Rauan rated it:

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 believ More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2008

Colin rated it:

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 that lov More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2007

Sarah rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Nicholas rated it:

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1682802.ht...

This is a selection of poetry translated from the original Persian of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, known as Mowlānā in Persian and Rūmī in the English-speaking world, whose followers founded the Mawlawī Sufi order, better known as the Whirling Dervishes, after his death. The poetry is expressive and profound, but also fairly easy to digest. Rūmī's basic philosophy is that one can find a path to the ineffable through meditation on love - his More...

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Nov 12, 2010

Tiger Holland (All-Consuming Books) rated it:

This collection is divided into 28 parts, loosely arranged into categories like “Bewilderment” and “Union,” and it often deals with themes of spiritual longing, and the experience of Exstasis, being outside the self (or wanting to be), as he says in the lines, “My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,/ and I intend to end up there.” (“Who Says Words With My Mouth?” 4-5) A human being is like a reed flute whose song shows that it's longing for the reed bed it came from—human language is onl More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 21, 2010

Dan rated it:

"I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home."

Coleman Barks was introduced to the poetry of Rumi by Robert Bly....with Bly saying "these poems need to be released from their cages." Since that time Barks has worked with literal translations of Rumi, transforming them into modern poetry. Rumi was a 13th century Persian mystic, as essential to the Muslim world as Shakespeare to the Western w More...

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Feb 26, 2008

Terri rated it:

I read Rumi's poetry constantly. It is comforting, brings peace to my soul and has constant great, practical advice for life's ups and downs. It's hard to believe these works were written centuries upon centuries ago.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 15, 2009

Monty rated it:

I was more than a little irritated at this book: I don't want Coleman Barks' interpretations of Rumi, I want Rumi's words. Barks doesn't understand Persian and didn't translate any of Rumi's work, but he takes existing translations of Rumi and reworks them. What Barks is doing is akin to a DJ mixing someone else's remix into their own DJ set, and then trying to pass that off as the original material. If you're going to practice that form of collage, don't market it as anything else; let the coll More...

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Dec 02, 2010

Iwona rated it:

"The Guest House"

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Amy rated it:

This is the best interpretation of Rumi I have found, plus it gives a little background to Sufism with each section. It is a true spiritual guide without dogma.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Phillip rated it:

Along with the Tao Te Ching, I have this book on my little breakfast nook, and read a few pages every morning over breakfast...beyond essential.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 04, 2010

James rated it:

Great combination of poetry, philosophy and advice for everyday living.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 27, 2008

Sharon rated it:

Everything and nothing.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 01, 2011

Mia rated it:

He was passionate, brutally honest yet tremendously in love. Rumi was a rarity amongst poets that claimed they knew something about love. When I read this book, it transported me to something else beyond life even love itself. He shaped my own art in poetry but most of all he opened my heart infinitely. At the end of the day, who you are and what you've become has little even no significant at all if you never for once in your life, falls into love. And this book will show you a small magnitude More...

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Oct 29, 2011

Adi (Reading in the Windowseat) rated it:

A book of the sweetest, saddest and most riveting love prayers and confessions. There is magic to the words, to the short verses which wraps you up and makes you read them over and over again, not always able to grasp the conscepts, but always feeling a chill running down the spine from their power. A flow of emotion and spirit that calls through the ages and whispers of incorporeal power and weakness, of surrender and victory, of a life fully lived and spent in bliss through the governing force More...

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Oct 23, 2008

Drea rated it:

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 le More...

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Mar 04, 2010

Maureen rated it:

Coleman Barks went to Philadelphia to visit The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sri Lankan Muslim sheik. The Bawa told him that his life's work would be translating the poems of Jelalludin Rumi. Barks took The Bawa's advice to heart, and started down the path that would find Barks becoming the truest, most inspired translator of Rumi's work. I have read many different translators' work, and none of them, not even Stephen MItchell, can begin to compare with Barks.

It is impossible to study Su More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Polly rated it:

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
More...

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Jul 26, 2007

Aberjhani rated it:

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 tha More...

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Sep 07, 2008

Julia rated it:

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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Mar 04, 2010

Stanley rated it:

This is not a book you can ever say you "Read" as if you actually finished it and then put it on the shelf. This book is a bible, a companion, a map to the soul, to life and all the Universe. You will carry it with you around the house, keep it on your desk, in your bathroom, in your backpack - wherever it is you may need quick access to enlightened poetry and guidance. If you are up, this book will provide confirmation. If you are down, this book will give you answers and reasons to k More...

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Oct 06, 2011

Marian rated it:

Beautiful , but much more. This collection of an 15th Century Persian poet.. spoke the words of my own soul. I felt as if I were falling in love with Rumi. Perhaps we do. Perhaps that's Rumi's point. Start out with "The Guest House" as a first toe into Rumi's writings.

This collection , brilliantly translated by the incomparable Coleman Barks, might change you forever.

Always close by, this book is as relevant as it is profound. Get it.

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