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Coleman Barks

Born

in Chattanooga, TN, The United States

April 23, 1937

Website

http://www.colemanbarks.com/

Genre

Poetry

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Coleman Barks is an American poet. Despite the fact that he admittedly speaks no Persian, he is world-renowned as a translator of Rumi and other mystic poets of Persia. Barks taught literature at the University of Georgia for three decades. He makes frequent international appearances and is well-known throughout the Middle East. Barks's work has contributed to an extremely strong following of Rumi in the English-speaking world. Due to his work, the ideas of Sufism have crossed many cultural boundaries over the past few decades. Coleman Barks received an honorary doctorate from Tehran University in 2006.

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Coleman Barks’s books

Average rating: 4.38 · 66,938 ratings · 2,688 reviews · 99 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks (Translator), Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi, John Moyne (Translator) 4.39 avg rating — 50,460 ratings — published 1273 — 56 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Illuminated Prayer: The Five-Times Prayer of the Sufis by Coleman Barks, Michael Green 4.24 avg rating — 172 ratings — published 2000 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia : Translations from the Poems of Sanai, Attar, Rumi, Saadi and Hafiz : Lectures on Persian Poetry by Coleman Barks (editor), Inayat Khan (Editor), Coleman Barks (Editor) 4.37 avg rating — 150 ratings — published 1993 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rumi: We Are Three 4.41 avg rating — 135 ratings — published 1988 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	I Want Burning: The Ecstatic World of Rumi, Hafiz, and Lalla 4.44 avg rating — 117 ratings — published 1992 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008 (A Brown Thrasher Books Original) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 2008 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gourd Seed: Poems 4.25 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1993 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hummingbird Sleep: Poems, 2009-2011 4.15 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tentmaking: Poems and Prose Paragraphs 4.17 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2001	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rumi: Poet of Divine Ecstasy really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Coleman Barks (?)

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make sense any more.”
― Coleman Barks

356 likes

“A man once asked Rumi, "Why is it you talk so much about silence?" His answer: "The radiant one inside me has never said a word.”
― Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems

28 likes

“Solitude is a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.”
― Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems

24 likes

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Coleman Barks’s Followers (244)

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Coleman Barks

Combine EditionsColeman Barks’s books

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Combine Editions
Coleman Barks’s books