This Longing Poetry, Teaching Stories, and Letters of Rumi

This Rumi collection features selections from one of the world's great spiritual masterpieces, theMathnawi. TheMathnawiconsists of six volumes of poetry in rhyme-over fifty-one thousand verses-inspired by folklore, the Qur'an, stories of saints and teachers, and sayings of Muhammed. Rendered by Rumi's premier English translators, these excerpts from theMathnawiare presented in American free-verse style.

Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273) was not only a poet, mystic, and the founder of a Sufi order, he was a man of profound insight into the nature of human existence and possibly the greatest mystical poet of any age.Coleman Barks, Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, is Rumi's premier English translator. He lives in Athens, Georgia.John Moyne is a Persian scholar and Emeritus Professor and former head of Linguistics at the Graduate School of the City University of New York.