Customer Reviews

Say I Am You: Poetry Interspersed With Stories of Rumi and Shams

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This book is an excellent introduction to stories and poetry of Rumi, Shams (and even Rumi's son). The translations are secondary translations i.e. reworkings into free verse older more scholarly and literal translations. As such they make the works more readily accessable to the non-scholar. The stories provide a pleasant mix of relatively rare tales (stories that are quite specifically Sufi) and stories that appear in a variety of guises in different cultures and religions. The poems run from short lyrical pieces to stories in verse form - a nice cross section of Rumi's work. I have read several of Coleman Barks' translations - all enjoyable - and would recommend this book as a nice starting point.

A great introduction to Rumi's life and work. Contains nearly all the poems included in the video Love's Confusing Joy with Bill Moyers.

Teachers: Capture the magic of Rumi's poetry as an enrichment and integral part of your students' study of Islam - and turn them on to poetry - even those who never imagined they would love poetry! Do a geography lesson about this 13th-century poet, mystic, founder of an Islamic Sufi order. He was born in what is now Afghanistan, he was Persian and wrote in the Persian language, and he lived most of his life in Konya, Turkey. If you want to include something that is "Islamic literature" in a world literature course, than poetry is it. . . and as Coleman Barks put it, "Rumi is to the Islamic world what Shakespeare is to us. . ." So, please begin here!

7th grade to adult - Social Studies/Language Arts