Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing

Rumi: The Book of Love is a collection of astonishing poems for lovers from the mystic Rumi, by the translator who made him sing anew, Coleman Barks.

Poetry and Rumi fans will want to own this gorgeously packaged compilation of spiritual love poems by the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic. Rumi is best known and most cherished as the poet of love in all its forms, and renowned poet and Rumi interpretor Coleman Barks has gathered the best of these poems in delightful and wise renderings that explore divine love and will open your heart and soul to the lover inside and out.

What mysteries of the heart will you discover in these celebrated translations?

• Ecstasy and Longing: Experience the soaring heights and profound depths of the soul’s connection to the divine, as captured in Rumi’s most passionate verses.
• Sufi Mystic Wisdom: Discover timeless insights from a thirteenth-century master on the nature of being, non-being, and the annihilation of the self in the presence of the beloved.
• The Coleman Barks Translation: Read the masterful and accessible renderings that introduced Rumi to a new generation of Western readers and made his poetry “sing anew.”
• A Poet of Love: Explore the many forms of love—from the spontaneous joy of friendship to the all-consuming fire of union—in this essential collection for the heart.

The Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi is most beloved for his poems expressing the ecstasies and mysteries of love in all its forms—erotic, platonic, divine—and Coleman Barks presents the best of them in this delightful and inspiring collection. Rendered with freshness, intensity, and beauty as Barks alone can do, these startling and rich poems range from the "wholeness" one experiences with a true lover, to the grief of a lover's loss, and all the states in between: from the madness of sudden love to the shifting of a romance to deep friendship to the immersion in divine love. Rumi, the ultimate poet of love, explores all "the magnificent regions of the heart," and he opens you to the lover within. Coleman Barks has made this medieval, Persian-born (present-day Afghanistan) poetic and spiritual genius the most popular poet in America today. This seductive volume reveals Rumi's charms and depths more than any other.

“Perhaps the world’s greatest poet, the gold of Rumi pours down through Barks’s words.” - Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

“An ecstatic experience.” - Deepak Chopra, author of The Soul in Love

“Another perfect gem from the master translator of Rumi’s poetry.” - Roger Housden, author of Ten Poems to Change Your Life and Chasing Rumi

“It’s a mystery how heart can come into apparently simple English.” - Robert Bly, National Book Award-winning poet and translator