Category: International Poetry

Rumi, Hafez and A Lot of Information About Translation

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Disclaimer: I do not read Persian, so I can only comment on the English translations and versions of this poetry. I hope to find some friends who can point me toward good videos and audio recordings of these poems in their original language.

Photo credits: The image above is the inside of Rumi’s shrine, in Koyna Turkey. The image further down is the outside.

By some accounts, Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi, a great poet who lived in the 13th century, is currently the most popular poet in the United States. (BBC (2104). An Amazon search, admittedly not the most scientific approach, turned up – in descending order – Maya Angelou, Dr. Seuss, Mary Oliver, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Claudia Rankine, Rumi, Kahil Gibran, and Homer. While I find this a fascinating subject, it’s not the purpose of this post, so I must move on. If you really want the scoop on America’s relationship to poetry, you will enjoy Kate Angus’ post “Americans Love Poetry, But Not Poetry Books” at this link. Heaven help us.

My intention here is to point you toward different translations of Rumi’s poetry. The following is a goodly sample. I also include translations of Hafez, whom we will also read at our Persian New Year event, if we have the time and/or if he is requested.

Translations and Versions

Recommended translation by Franklin D. Lewis.

  • Rumi: Swallowing the Sun (poems). At Amazon.
  • Rumi – Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalâl al-Din Rumi (2007) — biography. At Amazon, on GoodReads. Reviewed on JSTOR.

Recommended Translation by A. J. Arberry (1968)

  • Mystical Poems of Rumi (new edition with forward by Franklin D. Lewis, 2008. At Amazon.
  • More about A. J. Arberry at Wikipedia, including a link to his translation of the Quran.

Robert Bly interviewed by Bill Moyers about Hafez and Rumi, reading his translations of their poems.

Translations by Robert Bly (including Hafez and Rumi )

  • The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door. Thirty Poems of Hafez. (2004) Amazon.
  • Poems of Rumi (Translated and Spoken By Robert Bly and Coleman Barks) – audio recording. On iTunes and at Amazon (1989).

Versions by Colman Barks (will be most familiar to anyone who reads Rumi in English)

  • The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition (2004) on Amazon, on GoodReads
  • Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing (2003) on Amazon, on GoodReads
  • Video of Barks and Bly reading Rumi with musical accompaniment on YouTube

Dick Davis translations of Hafez

  • Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz (2013) at Amazon
  • Davis reading his translations of three poems by Jahan Malek Khatun, an Inju Princess, on the News Hour on YouTube.
  • NPR interview with Davis about his book (2013)
  • Davis’ translation of Hafez’ “For Years My Heart Inquired of Me” at the Poetry Foundation

Analysis and Commentary

If you want analysis on the different translations and versions, an excellent on-line source is the Dar-al-Masnavi, curated by the international Dar-al-Masnavi group.

“The Masnavi is the great masterpiece of Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi who lived in the 13th century. The Masnavi consists of mainly of sufi teaching stories with profound mystical interpretations. It contains thousands of rhyming couplets (a type of poetry called, in Arabic, “mathnawî”) and is a treasury of religious mysticism of a most sublime quality — which is why it has been so famous and well-loved for so many centuries.”

The site discuss the problems of translating Rumi.

  • After more than 700 years, Jalaluddin Rumi might be the most popular poet in the United States. Largely due to US authors, such as the poet Coleman Barks, who has rendered literal translations of Rumi into free verse “American spiritual poetry” in a manner which has reached so many different sectors of American society.
  • Unfortunately, this popularization has a real price: the frequent distortion of Rumi’s words and teachings which permeate these well-selling books. The English “creative versions” rarely sound like Rumi to someone who can read the poems in the original Persian, and they are often “shockingly altered.” Few American’s realize this however, believing instead that versions are faithful renderings into English of Rumi’s thoughts and teachings (when they are very often not).

For the original essay on this subject (which I have drastically summarized above) visit the site to read about the popularization in the United States of Rumi’s poetry, and more about the difference between versions and translations. Of special note to anyone interested in the idea of translating poetry (in any language) consider the author’s comments on Ezra Pound’s scholarly translations of Li Po’s Chinese poems and Japanese Noh plays.

shrine of rumi in turkey

Biographies and More Information

Rumi at The Academy of American Poets

Hafez at The Poetry Foundation (also sometimes spelled Hafiz in English)

Robert Bly at The Poetry Foundation

Coleman Barks at The Poetry Foundation

Rabi’a, female Sufi mystic saint and poet, at The Poetry Foundation, at Sufi Poetry (blog)

Persian New Year Poetry Background

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As part of my International Poetry Cantos project in 2015, Canto Number 2 is Persian New Year Poetry. Persian New Year is celebrated on March 20, 2015 — the date of the Vernal Equinox.

On Wednesday, March 25, please join me in reading poems by Persian poets, in Farsi and in English. We’ll be meeting at Village Falafel, on Stevens Creek Blvd in Cupertino, at 6:30 pm to read poems together and to eat.

To prepare for this event, I want to introduce you to Persian poets of repute, but first a little background. Persian literature is one of the world’s most ancient literatures. You can read about it on Wikipedia for a fast overview, or at the Iran Chamber Society, or Encyclopedia Britannica.  Obviously a few websites can’t do justice to this rich tradition, but if you have no familiarity, I suggest spending a few moments to orient yourself.

When we speak of Persian poetry, we mean in general, poetry written in Farsi, also known as Parsi or Persian, or poetry written by people who live in the land currently known as Iran. An interesting source is Classical Persian Poetry: A Thousand Years of the Persian Book, a fascinating look at a Library of Congress exhibit.

The most famous (to Americans) Persian art form is the ghazal, described here by the Academy of American Poets. This link takes you to a lovely example of the form, in English, by poet Agha Shahid Ali on the Poetry Foundation website. Though a Kashmiri Muslim, Ali is well known for writing in this form for American audiences. While I am not an expert, I found this website, with literal and poetic translations of some of Rumi’s famous ghazals to be very enlightening and inspiring.

The most well know Persian poets in the U.S. are Rumi and Hafez. Here are some resources.

  • Poetry Foundation video, in collaboration with The News Hour, “Bringing Persian Poetry to Western Readers” about Hafez.
  • Hafez biography

hafez

Rumi

There are many books, translations, essays, fantasies about these legendary and vital poets. I’ll be pulling together a bibliography in the next week, getting us ready to read on March 25.

Stay tuned!

Last Poem-A-Day Prompt #43

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It’s been a good year, and a long haul, and I’m tired. I didn’t think I could be tired of poetry, but I’m tired of this project. So long, it’s been good to know you….

I began on October 10, 2013. First on Facebook, then here. The Tumblr part of the project was much harder to keep up with. But, for all the trials, it’s been a very interesting experiment and I’ve written some poems I’m proud of. I hope now, that I’m not focusing so much on new work, I’ll be able to get some of the raw poems tuned up into poems that might get published.

If you’re interested, I wrote about the PAD (and about my writing process in general) on a post on my other blog, “A Twirly Life” last week, as part of a Virtual Blog Tour.

For the final prompt in the project, I offer you some resources. These are books and websites that I’ve used over the years to get me writing and help keep me writing. I hope that they might serve you.

Books I Like

National Society Websites

  • The American Academy of Poets (www.poets.org)
  • The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org)
  • The Poetry Society of America (www.poetrysociety.org)

International

  • The Poetry Society (UK) (www.poetrysociety.org.uk)

For High School Students

  • Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest (www.poetryoutloud.org)
  • The National English Honor Society for High Schools (www.nehs.us)
  • Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools (www.loc.gov/poetry/180/)

For Younger Kids

Don’t worry, I’ll still post on Facebook and keep up with current events and the upcoming 2015 Cupertino International Poetry Festival here, but no more prompts weekly (or not even weekly!).

(I’m not sure what to make of 43 prompts — in a whole year there should be 52, if they were really weekly. Once I get to the number crunching, it will be clear what happened. 43 is not such a bad number.)

Postcard Poetry Project

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There’s a group on Facebook doing this, and since I’m not clever enough to share that Facebook Group Event, I’m putting the information here.
 
Every few years, we poets who love sending and receiving snail mail engage in an enormous pen pal event called the Postcard Poem Project. Last time, in 2012, we swapped poetry and postcards between over 250 poets from 16 countries on four continents. This time, we’re hoping for all seven continents. Here’s how it works…:

Poets who wish to participate have until Friday, September 19th, 2014 to email their address to the website. On that weekend, they will receive two randomly-picked mailing addresses; they could be from the other side of the world, or just down the street. Poets will buy (or make) two postcards, write a short poem on the back of each (preferably about the pictures on the front of each postcard), and send them to their mailing addresses before the end of September. Easy, right? Come October or November, you will hopefully receive two poems in your mailbox from two complete strangers… poems written just for you!

You probably have questions. We have answers. But first: Are you in, or out? If you’re in, here’s what you have to do:

Send an email to postcardpoemproject@gmail.com that includes your full mailing address, the way you would write it on a postcard yourself. It should look something like this:

Your Name
Your Street Address
The Rest Of Your Address
Your Country

(People often leave out either their name or their country. Please don’t leave out your name or your country. Also, WE DID NOT KEEP ADDRESSES FROM THE LAST ROUND, so please send your address in even if you have before!)

You will receive a reply email with all the details and an FAQ section. In the meantime, help make this project grander by passing this event on to any poets you know! Spread the word, and help spread good words in the mailboxes of the world!

 

A Request for Youth Poetry About Ferguson

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In this New York Times article, read about a request (internationally!) for youth to write and share poetry in response to what happened in Ferguson, when unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by police, and the protests and violence that followed.

This project is produced by the Off/Page Project, which combines the analytical lens of The Center for Investigative Reporting with the groundbreaking storytelling of the literary nonprofit Youth Speaks. Living at the intersection of youth voice and civic engagement, the Off/Page Project provides a multimedia platform for young people to investigate the issues and stories that would otherwise be silenced.

 

 

Iranian Poet Simin Behbahani

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An important poet, known and beloved by many, as the “Lioness of Iran,” has passed away. You can read some of her poems and click through to listen to interviews with her in this NPR story. (The photo above is from that story, credited to Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images.)

Here is a great story about her fight for women’s rights (from the Washington Post).

At this great website, you can read in English or Iranian, poetry and commentary. You can also see the video of President Obama reading her poetry. This photo is from that site. I love the look in her eyes — far away gazing with full knowledge and ferocity.

I look forward to learning more about this woman’s poetry. Share a comment here if you already are a fan.

020-14210f0929

 

“Midnight Approaches” — Persian poetry with music and video

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This suite of seven videos (an introduction to Persian poetry, five video poem performances, and an interview with the translator) is the production of my friend, Niloufar Talebi. Niloufar is a dancer, translator, opera librettists — a woman with an enormous love for language, music and imaginative discourse.

I thought I’d take a break from “straight” poetry today and let you indulge all your senses with music and dance; listen, read, enjoy.

Of course, today is Poem In Your Pocket Day, too, but I’ll put up another post about this.

Pulitzer Prize Winner Vijay Seshadri

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It’s been a busy day. I don’t have much energy for (even) poetry, Luckily, the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry was awarded today to Vijay Seshadri. As this NPR Book News article says, this winner was unexpected. I know nothing about Mr. Seshadri, other than he was born in Bangalore India, in 1954, and he must be a great poet. This should make him of particular interest to our Cupertino community. Here’s a biography of Mr. Seshadri from Poets.org and here is a poem of his, that speaks directly to our guilt and privilege, and the mysterious nature of our survival. I look forward to learning more about his poetry.

Survivor
by Vijay Seshadri

We hold it against you that you survived.
People better than you are dead,
but you still punch the clock.
Your body has wizened but has not bled

its substance out on the killing floor
or flatlined in intensive care
or vanished after school
or stepped off the ledge in despair.

Of all those you started with,
only you are still around;
only you have not been listed with
the defeated and the drowned.

So how could you ever win our respect?–
you, who had the sense to duck,
you, with your strength almost intact
and all your good luck.

Survivor

by Vijay Seshadri

We hold it against you that you survived.
People better than you are dead,
but you still punch the clock.
Your body has wizened but has not bled

its substance out on the killing floor
or flatlined in intensive care
or vanished after school
or stepped off the ledge in despair.

Of all those you started with,
only you are still around;
only you have not been listed with 
the defeated and the drowned.

So how could you ever win our respect?--
you, who had the sense to duck,
you, with your strength almost intact
and all your good luck.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16670#sthash.UJ3y7UXY.dpuf

Survivor

by Vijay Seshadri

We hold it against you that you survived.
People better than you are dead,
but you still punch the clock.
Your body has wizened but has not bled

its substance out on the killing floor
or flatlined in intensive care
or vanished after school
or stepped off the ledge in despair.

Of all those you started with,
only you are still around;
only you have not been listed with 
the defeated and the drowned.

So how could you ever win our respect?--
you, who had the sense to duck,
you, with your strength almost intact
and all your good luck.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16670#sthash.UJ3y7UXY.dpuf