Book of the Month: THE ESSENTIAL RUMI by Jalaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

When I decided that I wanted to focus on poetry for the month of April, I knew that I also wanted a poetry book to spotlight. So I wandered over to BookRiot's list of fifty of the best poetry books available to get some inspiration. And there, featured in the "classic poetry" section, was The Essential Rumi.

Rumi was a name I had heard of in passing, though not one I really knew anything about. But the book's description on the list fascinated me: how was it that a 13th-century Muslim scholar and mystic became one of the most widely-read poets in the United States? I had to learn for myself.

Published in 1995, The Essential Rumi features translations by American poet and former University of Georgia professor Coleman Barks. Rather than translating directly from the original Persian (which he does not read or write), Barks based his work on pre-existing English translations from earlier scholars. "It has seemed appropriate to place Rumi in the strong tradition of American free verse," he writes, "which has the inner searching, the delicacy, and the simple groundedness that also characterize Rumi's poetry. These are free translations, but I hope they remain true to the essence." (page 365)

Barks also takes an unusual approach with how he groups Rumi's poems together. Rather than going chronologically and/or sorting the poems according to the larger work they originate from, Barks identifies a variety of recurring subjects in Rumi's body of work—places, emotions, daily activities, aesthetic qualities—and divides them into sections based around those subjects. Thus we have series of poems dedicated to "Spring Giddiness," to "Elegance," to "Baghdad" and many more.

The Essential Rumi is large for a poetry book—around 400 pages—and if you open that book to any random page, chances are you'll find some vivid and profound line worth meditating upon. These poems all vary wildly from each other, reflecting the depth and complexity of life itself. Many of them are fleeting fragments of thought, only a couple of lines long. Others are much longer, taking up a page or two, and have been given titles by Barks. Some of the poems include clear narratives or focus on recognizable aspects of daily life, and some are more abstract and inward-looking in their subject matter. In some poems you will find clear morals about how to live a righteous existence, as you would expect from a religious leader providing guidance to his community. In others you will find the speaker taking joy in a simple facet of daily life, creating something profound out of the ordinary.

I think love is a key word here. No matter what the subject or intention of the work, Rumi's poetry conveys a deep and all-encompassing love for the world and the people around him. This is true even when the poem is about serious subjects like death, loss and feelings of emptiness. When Rumi speaks of those things, his tone is one of melancholy but ultimately acceptance, infused with the knowledge that negative experiences are an essential part of life. See how he talks about death in this poem, which Barks has titled "The Deepest Rest":

Death is a wedding feast,
and the secret of that
is that God is one.

Sunlight comes in through the windows
and gets reflected around the room.

Then the windows are closed.
Individual grapes become one dark wine.

For someone who lives in the light of God,
death is nourishment.

In other poems, like this one titled "A Cave Where Shams of Tabriz is Resting," Rumi relies on the beliefs and people that give him strength to survive difficult times. In this case, that source of strength are his memories of Shams, a Sufi mystic who became his mentor and closest friend.

Every day this separation, this December
hoping for Spring, city after city refusing me
because of a prince I serve.

My house and shop are torn down
because of the tulips I grow.
...

You say, Will you endure this failure
and homelessness without relief?

Yes. Because my chest is a cave
where Shams of Tabriz is resting.

But when Rumi is speaking of happier subjects, his words sparkle with excitement. There is an infectious joy and energy to his words, like in this poem from the "Spring" section that I'm quite fond of:

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
...

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

But as lovely as these poems are, I do feel inclined to seek out some more faithful translations for comparison. Scholars have criticized Barks's translations in the past, notably for downplaying or removing the many allusions to Islam in Rumi's work. I'd be particularly interested in looking at the translations by Persian-American poet and musician Haleh Liza Gafori, the most recent of which was published in April of this year.

But does this mean that the Barks translations are outdated and wrong and should no longer be read? Of course not. Regardless of how you feel about the quality of the translations and the way they were done, The Essential Rumi is worth looking at in order to understand the version of this poet that most English-speaking readers are familiar with, the one that popularized his work in the Western world. And I do understand why these poems became so popular with Americans: though they are based on the words of a man who lived centuries ago on the other side of the globe, they depict a profound spiritual awakening and a deep desire for enlightenment, something that many of us aspire to. It's also a valuable resource for would-be poets like myself, a way to study free verse and learn about the sorts of emotions and imagery that are possible in poetry.

But above all, the thing I appreciated the most about the poems was the sense of peace I felt while reading them. Whether it was a longer piece or just a snippet, I enjoyed the process of absorbing the words, appreciating the language and parsing out the meaning of the work. So whether you have just a few minutes of downtime or you're looking to spend the afternoon relaxing your brain, The Essential Rumi will give you something worthwhile to ruminate on—and no, Rumi isn't where the word "ruminate" comes from, but it's a nice little coincidence, don't you think?

This was the Book of the Month for April. Check back in a few weeks to see the Book of the Month for May!

—Dana