The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition

by Jalal al-Din Rumi

Other authorsColeman Barks (Translator), John Moyne (Translator)

Paperback, 2004

Status

Available

Call number

891.5511

Publication

HarperOne (2004), Edition: Expanded ed., 416 pages

Description

This revised and expanded edition of The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems. Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever. The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.

User reviews

LibraryThing member co_coyote

Passionate, ecstatic poems from the 13th century Sufi poet, Jelaluddin Rumi. Coleman Barks gets these translations just exactly right. If you are going to take a book of poems to a desert island, take this one. (And, maybe, the Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda.) I take my well-thumbed copy on my

travels. I can open it anywhere and be immediately transported into a different place. If you ever run across a recording of Barks reading this poetry with his jazz band, snatch it up. It will be the best present you ever bought yourself.

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LibraryThing member greeniezona

This really is one of my favorite books of all time. I have opened it up again and again and again. It was especially important to me my senior year in college. I will always love Rumi, and Coleman Barks.

LibraryThing member tuckerresearch

Beautiful free translations of the Sufi master that dispense with rhyme and meter, but capture the Zen-like quality of Rumi's parables.

LibraryThing member Aberjhani

THE ESSENTIAL RUMI is a more than worthy introduction to the enchanted spiritual poetics of Jalaluddin Rumi.

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 than a dozen writers and scholars who frequently publish volumes of Rumi’s work. Interpretations of his poetry have been recorded as musical compositions by such diverse individuals as motivational speaker Deepak Chopra and famed music producers Graeme Revell and Roger Mason, among numerous others.

In addition, calendars, biographies, web sites, and discussion groups all based on the life and passion of Rumi are in plentiful supply. Rumi himself in many parts of the world is greatly revered as a saint. When he died, representatives from every major religion hailed him as one of their own.

Aberjhani
author of VISIONS OF A SKYLARK DRESSED IN BLACK
and ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

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LibraryThing member mykl-s

The Essential Rumi by Jalal al-Din Rumi (1997)

LibraryThing member sumitkumarbardhan

A collection of Rumi's work from many sources, and not just restricted to the Masnavi.

LibraryThing member HippieLunatic

This is a wonderful collection of Rumi's writing, along with some small bits of insights from Barks regarding history and Rumi's life. There are some spectacular pieces within this collection, which make me want to memorize much of Rumi's poetry.

I thoroughly enjoyed the organization of these

pieces, according to theme rather than chronology. This allowed the reader to focus on the meaning of the words and the teachings of Rumi.

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LibraryThing member regularguy5mb

Rumi is one of those names I was always familiar with, had probably seen glimpses of through other readings, but had never been a true focus for me. So, when I saw this book along with other "essential" religious books, I grabbed it.

What can one say about Rumi that probably hasn't been said before?

That level of brilliance and mysticism that just make your head spin with thought and interpretation.

I do like the way this book is organized, thematically instead of chronologically, it makes the writings flow so much better in each section. This is definitely one I'll be coming back to.

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LibraryThing member keylawk

A poet living in Persia in the 12th century. The Notes reveal a unique organization of the ghazals:

"ALAST is the primordial covenant that occurs when God addresses the not-yet-created humanity, "Am I not your Lord? ALASTU BI-RABBIKUM." Rumi hears the question as a creative music that makes all

creatures come forth in a loving dance of reply, "Yes!"

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LibraryThing member tuckerresearch

Beautiful free translations of the Sufi master that dispense with rhyme and meter, but capture the Zen-like quality of Rumi's parables.

LibraryThing member Kronomlo

I've read poetry in the past, never really enjoying or disliking it, just reading because I was either told to for a class or out of curiosity. The poetry of Rumi made me truly appreciate poetry, GOOD poetry, and why it's one of the oldest art forms of humanity. His words made me both laugh and

think deeply, usually in the same sentence. I can see why he has been so loved through the ages.

If you're on the fence about poetry, read Rumi.

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LibraryThing member 2lizards

This book is one of my all-time favorites. One wonders how much of the poetry is Rumi and how much is Barks. Whatever the ratio, the poetry ranges from searingly beautiful, to raucous, to raunchy. One of the few books that can bring tears to my eyes from laughter, sadness and beauty.

LibraryThing member smallself

If Rumi were alive I think he would have a job in some secular university (which is great).

LibraryThing member realnicebooks

Barks and Moyne have translated many of the best-loved poems of Rumi in this book and grouped them into 27 categories, such as The Tavern, Bewilderment, On Silence, and so forth. Since Rumi has left us a huge number of poems, this book makes it easy to locate poems by content. Rea Keech used quotes

from Rumi as chapter epigraphs and for the title of his novel A Hundred Veils.

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LibraryThing member elahrairah

I was surprised by how boring I found these poems. I think that I'm not really the right market to appreciate Rumi's mysticism and secret gayness, and perhaps its the way Barks has selected and tied together strands of works into more unified poetical structures, but it didn't do it for me and I

gave up after sixty pages.

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LibraryThing member brakketh

Interesting reading this sensuous, classic of Middle Eastern poetry.

LibraryThing member rubberkeyhole

I was introduced to the Sufi mystic Rumi in a college Religion course on mysticism, and fell in love with the depth found in the simplicity of his words. I now use this book as a "Magic 8-Ball" of sorts...if I have a problem, I flip through it and stop at random, and read through Rumi's answer for

me. His poetry is beautiful and his wisdom leaps off the page into your heart: "you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop," "maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots," are only a few of my favorites. Rumi is truly timeless.

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LibraryThing member swbesecker

Took a bit longer to read than usual and at times I wondered about Rumi's ramblings and their impetus. I felt I was reading his personal journal because, hey, that's what this is. I wonder what he would feel knowing his deepest thoughts are now widely read. Learned what most emotionally intelligent

humans learn and strive for has not changed over time. Our souls have remained steadfastly the same despite the era in which we live. The human condition then = the human condition now. So what IS the meaning of life if we make no collective progress in growing our souls as humans?

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LibraryThing member threadnsong

What an amazing series of translations of a most beloved poet. I knew about Coleman Barks from his work at Mythic Journeys, and now I get his passion for this series of poems. They are unlike anything I've ever read. I plan to read and re-read for many years to come.

LibraryThing member benuathanasia

The quality was all over the place. Some of it was beautiful, some of it was sad, some of it was funny, some of it was boring, some of it was convoluted. One of them is definitely going up onto my wall of quotes, though.

LibraryThing member goosecap

Rumi is everything that we have been accustomed to think that a Muslim cannot be. When we think of a Muslim, we often think of a legalist—an intolerant, possibly violent legalist. But Rumi frustrates legalists of every tradition and description.

When I first read this book several years ago, I

wanted something more wholesome than what I had been doing—and Rumi is wholesome—so I started looking for Shams. But in looking for the wholesome, I had the inherited idea, the cultural assumption, of politeness. Rumi is not polite. Rumi is so much bigger than that. Politeness is a sort of guarded appearance. Rumi is the essence beyond appearance, like a sort of rude silence.

And yet, he is also wholesome.

…. Rumi said a lot of cool things, but I think maybe my favorite was:

I gave sexual love with my eyes….
Until one day, I didn’t

For the sparseness of a thing, the multiple ways of getting from A to B, and yet there is a common trysting-place: impermanence….

…. James, brother of Jesus, ends his letter by saying that “love covers a multitude of sins”; usually we take that in relation to ourselves: because I love you, you’ll make me happy and overlook my many sins. But of course, it also works the other way: I love you, so my love covers your sins….

(“My love covers your violence, your greed.”)

I don’t have that down yet, but I’m glad I came across it, because although I didn’t draw another Rumi quote from the last part of the book I read today, (I was planning on the Rumi quote being the end), I guess I needed it this morning, since there are so many liars in the world, of various kinds, and especially the un-subtle ones make me angry; but if I were to get angry at them, the little goblins would laugh at me, cooking by the fire.

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