Barks reading at the Festival of Silence, Esvika, Asker, Norway, June 25, 2011
Coleman Barks (born April 23, 1937) is an American poet, and former literature faculty member at the University of Georgia. Although he neither speaks nor reads Persian,[1] he is a popular interpreterofRumi, rewriting the poems based on other English translations.[1]
Barks makes frequent international appearances and is well known throughout the Middle East. Barks' work has contributed to an extremely strong following of Rumi in the English-speaking world.[4] Due to his work, the ideas of Sufism have crossed many cultural boundaries over the past few decades. Barks received an honorary doctorate from University of Tehran in 2006.[5]
Barks has published several volumes of his interpretations of Rumi's poetry since 1976, including The Hand of Poetry, Five Mystic Poets of Persia in 1993, The Essential Rumi in 1995, The Book of Love in 2003 and A Year with Rumi in 2006.[citation needed]
Barks has published several volumes of his own poetry, including Gourd Seed, "Quickly Aging Here", Tentmaking, and, in 2001, Granddaughter Poems, a collection of his poetry about his granddaughter, Briny Barks, with illustrations by Briny. Harper published his first book of poetry, The Juice, in 1972.[citation needed]
^ abBarks, Coleman (2004). The Essential Rumi: New Expanded Edition. Harper Collins Publishers. p. 365. On the more literal level, the texts I work from to produce these poems are unpublished translations done by John Moyne, Emeritus Head of Linguistics at the City University of New York, and the following translations by Reynold Nicholson and A. J. Arberry, the famous Cambridge Islamicists...
^"Coleman Barks". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
