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Title: The Essential Rumi by Jalal Al-Din Rumi, John Moyne, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, Jelalludin Rumi, Coleman Barks ISBN: 0-7858-0871-X Publisher: Book Sales Pub. Date: October, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.51 (43 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Quite frankly, the most beautiful book I have ever read.
Comment: At the risk of cliche, if you only buy a single
book this year, please do yourself a favor and
make it "The Essential Rumi." Rumi is for
Americans who think that Islam is all about harems
and terrorists. A sultry serenade to God, Rumi's
poetry explodes in the soul with a beautiful force
that tears down the wall between the individual
and the Divine. Jelaluddin Rumi was a 13th
Century Sufi mystic, the founder of the so-called
"whirling dervishes", whose inner exploration
allowed him to attain a rare level of enlightenment
and connection with God. His poems resonate with
truth and wisdom so earnest that it is impossible
not to be swept away on a tide of pure spiritual
longing and fulfillment. This is a book for
anyone who loves poetry, religion, God, or love.
And if you don't love these things now, you will
by the time you finish "The Essential Rumi."
Rating: 5
Summary: Stunning poetry, beautifully translated
Comment: This is one of the best books of poetry translations I've ever read. Barks has done a tremendous job of rendering Rumi into language that captures the poet's range: oblique to blunt, ethereal to earthy. While I can't comment on the accuracy of the translations, they work beautifully as English poetry -- and that, to me, is the crucial part. To Western readers, Rumi was a misty eminence of literary and religious history, and Barks has brought him to glorious, complex life.
One caution: although Rumi wrote intensely spiritual poetry, some of the "teaching tales" are pretty raunchy (after reading about the maidservant and the donkey, I'll never look at gourds the same way again!). Again, his poetry blends the divine and the human, heavenly love and earthly eroticism. While there are analogues in Western religious poetry (e.g., Teresa of Avila and the English 17th-century poet Richard Crashaw), this may be unsettling for some readers.
The hardbound edition, at least, is well done: the paper has a nice texture, the typography and page design enhance the text, and the cover is attractive (I haven't looked at the paperback). For me, the attractiveness of the book greatly enhanced the experience of reading it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Poetic Enlightenment
Comment: Rumi (as he is known in the West), was known as Jelaluddin Balkhi by the Persians and 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 and 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 and family. Shams eventually 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), and used it as a personal practice and 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 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.
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Title: The Love Poems of Rumi by Deepak Chopra ISBN: 0609602438 Publisher: Harmony Books Pub. Date: 12 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Rumi: The Book of Love : Poems of Ecstasy and Longing by Coleman Barks ISBN: 0060523166 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master by Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky ISBN: 0140195815 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Soul of Rumi : A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems by Coleman Barks ISBN: 0060604522 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Illuminated Rumi by Jalal Al-Din Rumi, Coleman Barks, Michael Green ISBN: 0767900022 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 13 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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