Essential Rumi
by Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi
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Read in January, 2001
recommends it for:
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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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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 tha...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 January, 1998
recommends it for:
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"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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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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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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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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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, 2007
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It took me a year to read, but it transformed and enriched my worldview. It supported me through profound loss, grief, and lostness. In such a state, the poems become immensely meaningful, like water to a person in a desert. Rumi's words make me feel that any horrific situation is just as God wants it to be. He comes across as immensely loving, accepting, joyful, crazy.
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I've had this book for a few years, and am coming back to it for a second time. The poet's life is enchanting... I really want to learn more about him. I also really like what the translator/editor has done with the structure of this collection; it feels really organic and ... whimsical is not quite the right word, but sort of. I think the rhythm may be lost in translation, but I'm really enjoying the images.
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Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
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Rumi's poetry breathes life into any and all forgotten, undiscovered or neglected nooks and crannies of the human spirit. And Coleman Barks' translations allow the reader to engage in the ecstatic experience of Rumi's divine madness.
Shifts in perception and awareness inspire a true rapture of your own spirit as Rumi's words dance off the page and into your soul...
Shifts in perception and awareness inspire a true rapture of your own spirit as Rumi's words dance off the page and into your soul...
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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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Read in January, 2008
Sensual religion, ecstatic pronouncements, love truths that dissolve the self rather than enforcing it and attacking others, anti-hierarchical truth that still has orders of rank and recommends learning from a teacher, overdosing on this book may get me into poetry, who knew? A beautiful set of writings from an amazing Islamic mystic...
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Read in July, 2008
Rumi's poems are pedestrian at times and maddeningly brilliant at others. Too bad most of the pieces Coleman Banks translated for this book are of the pedestrian variety. Despite this apparent lack of quality control, Essential Rumi is still worth reading for those occasional moments of clarity and beauty.
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Rumi, Rumi, Rumi, where for art thou, Rumi? If you read Rumi, you will not want to stop. But please do, only to spend enough time in doing so to begin anew. Let some years go by so it's fresh again. But never stop Rumiing, he is your only friend. Rumi, Rumi, Rumi, there's not enough Rumi in my world for two. Rumi.
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Rumi is what my soul would sound like if it were articulate. This book is always with me when I travel. Bark's translations are supreme. I saw him give a reading in Athens once and, well, let's just say he's just behind Jimmy Carter and Neutral Milk Hotel on my list of people that make me proud to be from Georgia.
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Though I am ever mindful of the circumstances in which I discovered this book-- I picked it up thinking it would teach me how to improve my cards game-- it has provided me a poetic and metaphysical bulwark against the ever-encroaching nihilist hordes. My cards game on the other hand remains terrible.
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Ahhh, Rumi's poetry is magnificent! I am not a big poetry fanatic but Rumi is my all time favorite poet. One of my favorite Rumi quotes is "A mountain holds an echo deep inside itself, that's where I carry your voice" If you haven't been introduced to his work...you are definitely missing out.
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Rumi transends place and time. An intimate portrait of human spirituality, divinely inspired. Great literature, sure, but more impressive as a work of the mystic's journey through God. Appropriately uncensored and unedited. Paradoxical in ways that "refined" literature can never be.
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