Gold

A vibrant selection of poems by the great Persian mystic with groundbreaking translations by an American poet of Persian descent.

Rumi’s poems were meant to induce a sense of ecstatic illumination and liberation in his audience, bringing its members to a condition of serenity, compassion, and oneness with the divine. They remain masterpieces of world literature to which readers in many languages continually return for inspiration and succor, as wellas aesthetic delight. This new translation by Haleh Liza Gafori preserves the intelligence and the drama of the poems, which are as full of individual character as they are of visionary wisdom.

Marilyn Hacker praises Gafori’s new translations of Rumi as “the work of someone who is at once an acute and enamored reader of the original Farsi text, a dedicated miner of context and backstory, and, best of all, a marvelous poet in English.”

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–1273) was a thirteenth-century Sufi mystic born in the Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan. Considered the greatest poet of the Persian language, he also occasionally wrote in Turkish, Greek, and Arabic. His major works include the Masnavi, a six-volume collection of mystical teachings written in rhyming couplets, and the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, a collection of lyric poetry dedicated to his spiritual mentor. 

Haleh Liza Gafori is a poet, translator, vocalist, and educator. Her poetry has been published by Columbia University Press, Rattapallax Press, Beyond Borders, and Howl. In addition to the poems of Rumi, Gafori has translated the work of Hafez and contemporary Iranian poets. She has also released music as Haale and as The Mast. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.