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Walking Around In The Heart
Dec. 1st, 2007 11:04 amas I'm known to do - I spent an hour or so this morning in a extremely hot bath - with Arvo Part playing on the speakers in the bathroom - sipping Kona and reading. Today - in the tub - I read an interview of Coleman Barks, the preeminent translator of the poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi or simply, Rumi. (first two pages of the interview here)
Barks' journey with Rumi began in 1976, when friend and fellow poet Robert Bly gave him a copy of a stilted academic translation of Rumi’s poetry. “These poems need to be released from their cages,” Bly said.
Barks’s Rumi project eventually grew into a series of books — now numbering nineteen — that shocked publishers by catapulting a thirteenth-century Persian poet onto the bestseller lists. It’s no small irony that a Persian Muslim is one of America’s most popular poets at a time when relations between the U.S. and Iran — and the Islamic world as a whole — are so strained.
Curiously, the article revealed to me that Rumi and I share a birthday - granted 760 years apart. but still very cool.....
The article spends a great deal of time discussing Rumi's relationship with a fellow teacher named Sams - whose death/dissapearance brought forth the set of poems I'm using for the new novel... the rough metaphors. The brokenhearted Rumi ultimately composed forty-five thousand verses in honor of his lost friend. And in the end - wrote a score of how to find YOURSELF instead of others - and that in doing so - you find them as well.
It is a remarkable interview. It was sent to me by my great friend Brett (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
septimuswarren).
It was the absolute most perfect way to start my weekend.
Barks' journey with Rumi began in 1976, when friend and fellow poet Robert Bly gave him a copy of a stilted academic translation of Rumi’s poetry. “These poems need to be released from their cages,” Bly said.
Barks’s Rumi project eventually grew into a series of books — now numbering nineteen — that shocked publishers by catapulting a thirteenth-century Persian poet onto the bestseller lists. It’s no small irony that a Persian Muslim is one of America’s most popular poets at a time when relations between the U.S. and Iran — and the Islamic world as a whole — are so strained.
Curiously, the article revealed to me that Rumi and I share a birthday - granted 760 years apart. but still very cool.....
The article spends a great deal of time discussing Rumi's relationship with a fellow teacher named Sams - whose death/dissapearance brought forth the set of poems I'm using for the new novel... the rough metaphors. The brokenhearted Rumi ultimately composed forty-five thousand verses in honor of his lost friend. And in the end - wrote a score of how to find YOURSELF instead of others - and that in doing so - you find them as well.
It is a remarkable interview. It was sent to me by my great friend Brett (
septimuswarren). It was the absolute most perfect way to start my weekend.
