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 yearning 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

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

This book has a deliberate task: 'The design of this book is meant to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories.' Barks and Moyne have endeavoured to put together a unified picture that playfully spans the breadth of Rumi's imagination, without resorting to scholarly pigeon-holes and categorisations.

'All of which makes the point that these poems are not monumental in the Western sense of memorialising moments; they are not discrete entities but a fluid, continuously self-revising, self-interrupting medium.'

Rumi created these poems as part of a constant, growing conversation with a dervish learning community. It flows from esoteric to mundane, from ecstatic to banal, incorporating music and movement at some points, and not at others, with the occasional batch of prose.

'Some go first, and others come long afterward. God blesses both and all in the line, and replaces what has been consumed, and provides for those who work the soil of helpfulness, and blesses Muhammad and Jesus and every other messenger and prophet. Amen, and may the Lord of all created beings bless you.'

From the lofty sentiments...

'There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?'

...to the simple observations...

'Drunks fear the police,
but the police are drunks too.
People in this town love them both
like different chess pieces.'

Some poems take very mystic frameworks, such as the Sohbet. There is no easy English translation of Sohbet, save that it comes close to meaning 'mystical conversation on mystical subjects'. These poems become mystically Socratic, by a series of questions and answers, very simple on the surface, yet leading down to the depths of meaning.

In the middle of the night
I cried out,
"Who lives in this love
I have?"
You said, "I do, but I'm not here
alone. Why are these other images
with me?"

Rumi also has an elegant series called the Solomon Poems, in which King Solomon is the embodiment of luminous divine wisdom, and the Queen of Sheba is the bodily soul. This sets up a dynamic tension that gets played out in the poetry (in extrapolation from the Biblical stories from which they were first derived)

Rumi reminds us that, in the face of love and truth, even the wisdom of Plato and Solomon can go blind, but there is vision in this blindness.

In the conclusion of this volume, Rumi's poetry of The Turn (the dervishes) is presented, as a place of emptiness, where the ego dissolves, and opens a doorway to the divine to enter. The night of Rumi's death in 1273 is considered 'Rumi's Wedding Night', the night he achieved full union with the divine that he had sought so often in poetry and mystical practice.

There is much to be gained in the contemplation of this frequently overlooked poet.

If you are not a Muslim (and I am not one, either), do not be dismayed; Rumi's mystical, spiritual wonders are not exclusively "Islamic", but are rather universal and attuned to the spirituality of all three great monotheistic traditions. Reading Rumi, you will discover ways of looking at yourself, of thinking about yourself, and your relation to the world and God which will open new spiritual horizons for you. Rumi will help you drill down within yourself, and lift up beyond yourself, in strinkingly fresh, subtle, beautiful ways. You will experience God in your life in ways that you never previously noticed.

If there is one book you buy this year, buy this one -- you will not be disappointed.

After I returned to the United States, I learned of Rumi's rising popularity in the West- much of that due to the translations of Coleman Barks. Eventually, I invested in this compilation and found myself intoxicated with the beauty and wisdom of Rumi's poetry.

Whether you like what Barks has done with Rumi or not, I personally am grateful to him for doing his best to expose the West to everything that Rumi has to offer.

This book occupies a permanent place on my nightstand. Trust me, given my high esteem for books, this is prime real estate!

Jumla ma'shuq ast-o 'aashiq pardah' i

Zenda ma'shuq ast-o 'aashiq mordah'i

All is the Beloved and the lover is a veil

The Beloved is alive and the lover is dead

If you read the Farsi (even if it doesn't make sense to you) you can tell that the words not only rhyme but they have a distinct rhythm to them, aside from that, the vocabulary Rumi uses is ingenious.

Like another review I read, Barks is "translating translations", Barks mereley takes work already translated and retranslates them into a more readable structure.

The 6 books of the Mathnavi were put in a special order but Barks just chooses from here and there. Barks was even told by Bawa Muhayadeen (sufi saint) that "In order to understand a master, he would have to become one" Which he explains he didn't do, but he said that he frequently did meet with Bawa.

Nevertheless Coleman Barks does deserve much credit for bringing Rumi into Western culture.

Jalaludin Rumi was an ecstatic lover of Allah (SWT). His Mathnavi is considered by many the greatest book ever written by a human being. It would be to everyones benefit to read through it and see how a 13th Century Mystic, from Afghanistan but lived most of his life Konya, Turkey, had everything and everyone in this world figured out.

For a better idea of Rumi read E.H. Whinfield's TEACHINGS OF RUMI.