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The Essential Rumi

By: Jelaluddin Rumi
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins (USA)
ISBN: 0062509594
ISBN-13: 9780062509598
Released: 01 Jan 1995
RRP: £10.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Not easy to read - By: Ms. J. Lueders, 19 Jun 2007
Not the best Rumi stuff out there, & listen if this is your first introduction to this great master you'd do better to get another Rumi book.
Incredible - By: Spinoza, 08 Nov 2006
True, Coleman Barks does not speak Persian or Arabic. And he is the first to admit that his is not a literal translation. Instead, Barks has worked with translations into Turkish, intended to preserve the spirit of Rumi's poetry, & in has aimed to do the same. In this, I feel he has had phenomenal success.

This collection truly transmits the power & energy of Rumi's inspiration- invoking Plato's image (in the Ion) of the magnet as the muse, & the poet as the first iron ring attached to the magnet, absorbing its force, & transmitting the same force to the audience further along the line. I think this book brings strengthens the current for the English speaking audience, & hence channels a greater amount of the inspiration which makes Rumi's poetry so remarkable.

Not one for stuffy academics, but this book will touch your soul if you open to it.
Poetic enlightenment - By: Kurt Messick, 22 Dec 2005
Rumi (as he is known in the West), was known as Jelaluddin Balkhi by the Persians & Afghanis, from where he was born in 1207. Rumi means 'from Roman Anatolia', which is where his family fled to avoid the threat of Mongol armies. Being raised in a theological family, Rumi studied extensively in religion & poetry, until encountering Shams of Tabriz, a wandering mystic, with whom he formed the first of his intense, mystical friendships, so intense that it inspired jealously among Rumi's students & family. Shams eventuallly disappeared (most likely murdered because of the jealousy); Rumi formed later more mystical friendships, each with a different quality, which seemed essential for Rumi's creative output. Rumi was involved with the mystical tradition that continues to this day of the dervish (whirling dervishes are best known), & used it as a personal practice & as a teaching tool.

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 & Moyne have endeavoured to put together a unified picture that playfully spans the breadth of Rumi's imagination, without resorting to scholarly pigeon-holes & 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 & movement at some points, & not at others, with the occasional batch of prose.

'Some go first, & others come long afterward. God blesses both & alll in the line, & replaces what has been consumed, & provides for those who work the soil of helpfulness, & blesses Muhammad & Jesus & every other messenger & prophet. Amen, & may the Lord of alll 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 mysticallly Socratic, by a series of questions & 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 callled the Solomon Poems, in which King Solomon is the embodiment of luminous divine wisdom, & 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 & truth, even the wisdom of Plato & 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, & 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 & mystical practice.

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

Poetic enlightenment - By: Kurt Messick, 22 Dec 2005
Rumi (as he is known in the West), was known as Jelaluddin Balkhi by the Persians & Afghanis, from where he was born in 1207. Rumi means 'from Roman Anatolia', which is where his family fled to avoid the threat of Mongol armies. Being raised in a theological family, Rumi studied extensively in religion & poetry, until encountering Shams of Tabriz, a wandering mystic, with whom he formed the first of his intense, mystical friendships, so intense that it inspired jealously among Rumi's students & family. Shams eventuallly disappeared (most likely murdered because of the jealousy); Rumi formed later more mystical friendships, each with a different quality, which seemed essential for Rumi's creative output. Rumi was involved with the mystical tradition that continues to this day of the dervish (whirling dervishes are best known), & used it as a personal practice & as a teaching tool.

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 & Moyne have endeavoured to put together a unified picture that playfully spans the breadth of Rumi's imagination, without resorting to scholarly pigeon-holes & 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 & movement at some points, & not at others, with the occasional batch of prose.

'Some go first, & others come long afterward. God blesses both & alll in the line, & replaces what has been consumed, & provides for those who work the soil of helpfulness, & blesses Muhammad & Jesus & every other messenger & prophet. Amen, & may the Lord of alll 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 mysticallly Socratic, by a series of questions & 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 callled the Solomon Poems, in which King Solomon is the embodiment of luminous divine wisdom, & 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 & truth, even the wisdom of Plato & 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, & 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 & mystical practice.

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

Poetic enlightenment - By: Kurt Messick, 22 Nov 2005
Rumi (as he is known in the West), was known as Jelaluddin Balkhi by the Persians & Afghanis, from where he was born in 1207. Rumi means 'from Roman Anatolia', which is where his family fled to avoid the threat of Mongol armies. Being raised in a theological family, Rumi studied extensively in religion & poetry, until encountering Shams of Tabriz, a wandering mystic, with whom he formed the first of his intense, mystical friendships, so intense that it inspired jealously among Rumi's students & family. Shams eventuallly disappeared (most likely murdered because of the jealousy); Rumi formed later more mystical friendships, each with a different quality, which seemed essential for Rumi's creative output. Rumi was involved with the mystical tradition that continues to this day of the dervish (whirling dervishes are best known), & used it as a personal practice & as a teaching tool.

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 & Moyne have endeavoured to put together a unified picture that playfully spans the breadth of Rumi's imagination, without resorting to scholarly pigeon-holes & 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 & movement at some points, & not at others, with the occasional batch of prose.

'Some go first, & others come long afterward. God blesses both & alll in the line, & replaces what has been consumed, & provides for those who work the soil of helpfulness, & blesses Muhammad & Jesus & every other messenger & prophet. Amen, & may the Lord of alll 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 mysticallly Socratic, by a series of questions & 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 callled the Solomon Poems, in which King Solomon is the embodiment of luminous divine wisdom, & 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 & truth, even the wisdom of Plato & 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, & 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 & mystical practice.

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