COLEMAN BARKS, POET

Coleman Barks was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was educated at the University of North Carolina and the University of California at Berkeley. He taught poetry and creative writing at the University of Georgia for thirty years. He is the author of numerous Rumi translations and has been a student of Sufism since 1977. His work with Rumi was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers' Language of Life series on PBS, and he is a featured poet and translator in Bill Moyers' poetry special, "Fooling with Words." Coleman Barks is the father of two grown children and the grandfather of four. He lives in Athens, Georgia.

“One of the greatest pieces of good luck that has happened recently in American poetry is Coleman Barks' agreement to translate poem after poem of Rumi….Coleman’s exquisite sensitivity to the flavor and turns of ordinary American speech has produced marvelous lines, full of flavor and Sufi humor, as well as the intimacy that is carried inside American speech at its best.”
—Robert Bly

In addition to poetry readings of his own work and of Rumi, Coleman also offers Rumi in performance, with movement by Zuleikha, and live music by world-renowned musicians such as David Darling and Glen Velez.

Coleman Barks Website