Rumi

My first exploration of Rumi’s poetry. He was one among many inspirations of Mary Oliver’s oeuvre, among other nineteenth and twentieth-century American poets. It strikes me that a lot is probably lost in translation from Farsi into English. There are certain words, such as “whirling,” often repeated across numerous poems which I think probably had a different connotation in the original tongue.

A lot of Rumi’s poems possess a line or couplet that offers penetrating insight into some aspect of life. The poems contained here generally speak of love, despair, death, and the power of creative thought. Rumi grappled with emotions that we often find difficult to express and used powerful imagery to convey them. Highly recommended.