The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition by John Moyne

The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition Reviews

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  Happy2022

  ポエム集ですが、本当に心に響きます。また、ひとつのポエムの中に心を奪われるような素敵な一言があったりして、思わず書きとめたくなります。ルーミーを知っている友人たちが、「彼のポエムは深いよね！」という意味がわかりました。
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  Victor M.

  Todo Bien =)
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  goodreads Customer

  This book is better than I could have hoped. It is absolute nourishment for the soul and I love the way that Coleman Barks arranges the poems. Indeed, he does a marvellous job at translating Rumis golden words into English! I have such love for Rumi right now, as well as for Shams of Tabriz, the man who fuelled Rumis passion. How has this book escaped my attention until now? Why is it not on every book shelf? Blessings to the Friend, who breathed air into Rumi and played him like a reed flute. His words have rang out through the centuries and will never stop vibrating!
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  Ian Martin

  As one involved in meditation as a path to enlightenment and quite well read in the subject I greatly enjoyed thisvolume of Rumis poetry. As poetry on its own it stands head and shoulders above most poetry written in the English language. That is saying a lot as English has produced some magnificent works both historically andcontemporarily. Rumi can easily be compared to Shakespeare in quality although their subject matter was quite different. Shakespeare of course dealt with egoic human nature while Rumi is concerned with the mystical Spirit of all things. For the uninitiated some of the symbolism may take a while to understand but I think anyone who is considering this volume would be acquainted with such symbols as a door or a window or even the capital K King, or Friend as compared to friend. Although Rumi is 13th century Muslim many of his references are to the transcendent figures of Christianity. Many Christians may never have thought of the symbolic relationship of Jesus and his donkey but Rumi explains it very succinctly. Christianity of course has its own areas of mystical thought but for the most part have been banned by the Church as heretical simply because they erase the necessity of intermediaries between man and God, ie. the power structure of the priesthood. Look to the Gnostic Writings of the early church to see how similar they are to mystical thinking universally. Some of the words uttered by Jesusin the Gnostic Gospels might seem quite incomprehensible to our modern, indoctrinated minds. Of course in mystical thought, of which Rumi is a paramount figure, mans approach to God is direct. The Kingdom of Heaven is Within and To know ones Self is to know God are but two basic examples.Over and above the mystical thinking exemplified in this volume, it is highly erotic and at times, perhaps mainly to the Western mind, down right hilarious. Imagine a cooks responses to the objections of the chickpea in being boiled in water. The cooks responses turn out to be quite reasonable in themselves, not to mention the spiritual understanding involved.It is no wonder that Rumi is the most read poet in America today (by children of the 60s?) and it is said that Coleman Barks translations are much of the reason. I can not comment on that as I have only begun to read the work of other translators and am yet unable to intelligently compare and contrast but I will say that the translations of Coleman Bark have enabled a deep chord to be struck within me by this writer and poet in 13th century Farsi.I would highly recommend this volume to anyone exploring the Spiritual, as I would also recommend this volume to anyone who either loves poetry itself or thinks of poetry only as something to be taken or left. If you are one of the latter it may introduce you to a whole new view of literary expression. As with most all poetry it does demand time of contemplation to fully grasp its beauty and meaning. Rumi will always occupy of place of importance in my library, non fiction of course.
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  VL

  Enjoy reading the poems. Great stuff.