Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing [Hardcover]

Coleman Barks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2003

The Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi is most beloved for his poems expressing the ecstasies and mysteries of love in all its forms—erotic, platonic, divine—and Coleman Barks presents the best of them in this delightful and inspiring collection. Rendered with freshness, intensity, and beauty as Barks alone can do, these startling and rich poems range from the "wholeness" one experiences with a true lover, to the grief of a lover's loss, and all the states in between: from the madness of sudden love to the shifting of a romance to deep friendship to the immersion in divine love. Rumi, the ultimate poet of love, explores all "the magnificent regions of the heart," and he opens you to the lover within. Coleman Barks has made this medieval, Persian-born (present-day Afghanistan) poetic and spiritual genius the most popular poet in America today. This seductive volume reveals Rumi's charms and depths more than any other.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Sufi mystic Rumi has sold more than half a million volumes of his poetry-no small feat, considering that he lived in the 13th century. In this collection, poet Coleman Barks offers a funny, iconoclastic preface in which he attempts to tease out the reasons for Rumi's contemporary renaissance. He also warns readers that what follows will not be a pretty, happy book of love poetry: "This is not Norman Vincent Peale urging cheerfulness, conventional morality, and soft-focus, white-light, feel-good...New Age tantric energy exchange. This is giving your life to the one within that you know as LORD, which is a totally private matter." Rumi, he writes, is not the stuff of greeting cards. The poetry, accessibly translated and arranged by Barks, is organized by loose themes such as love's discipline, the new life with the beloved, "sudden wholeness," and love's excess.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Coleman Barks begins the preface of his gazillionth book of Rumi translations by saying, "I have sold too many books." Maybe so, but he hasn't tired of translating and retranslating Rumi. And people never seem to tire of reading the great Sufi mystic. Here, Barks delves into Rumi's take on love, retranslating dozens of poems he first adapted for The Essential Rumi (1995) and offering a few new translations. Rumi's love was, of course, about a great deal more than romance. Seeking annihilation in the Divine, Rumi basked in many forms of divine love, from his passionate (and, some argue, homoerotic) love for his teacher Shams to a reverence for the natural world. Barks has been criticized for basing his reworkings of Rumi on English translations instead of the original texts, but the two poets together are clearly a magical combination. Rumi's copious metaphorical expressions of love and the importance of unifying with it make wonderful reading. If Barks' versions are fast and loose, they are also, like Rumi himself, beautiful and accessible. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (January 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060523166
• ISBN-13: 978-0060523169
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, October 13, 2005

By 

E. Bronson "Wanderer" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing (Hardcover)

Rumi needs no praise from me and Barks' translation is beautiful, mysterious, and urgent. I find his introductions to the many sections especially moving. My only problem is that I ordered the book after I bought Barks' "The Essential Rumi," which changed me. This book has many overlaps. I'd have preferred to see more original translations, but as a first introduction, you can do no better.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like trying to condense the ocean into a review form......, July 15, 2007

By 

Julie Jordan Scott "Writer, Life Coach - Owne... (Bakersfield, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing (Roughcut)

How can I put into words the absolute wordless dimension this collection of poems creates within me?

The commentaries and introduction sections by Coleman Barks are valuable as well beyond words.

The reader would gain insights simply by picking it up and thumbing to any page and just read, read! My daughter and I tried this, we would bring up topics and then say "And what does Rumi say?" and I would read whatever the first words were that I saw in front of me.

They were always universally fitting.

I loved it, just like I love this book.

Wordless, speechless, love-filled - inspired.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars incredibly moving - I am inspired!, February 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing (Hardcover)

This collection of Rumi's poetry moved me like none of his other work. I have already given copies away several times over. You wont regret it!