A selection of original translations of the great Persian poet by an up-and-coming American translator and musician.
Rumi, Molana, Jalal ad-Dīn Mohammad Balkhy (1207-1273), was born in
or near the city of Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan.Considered
the greatest poet of the Persianlanguage, Rumi's major works are
the Masnavi, a six-volume collection of mystical teachings in
rhyming couplets, and the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, a collection of
lyric poetry dedicated to his spiritual mentor. He died and was
buried in Konya.
Haleh Liza Gafori is a poet, translator, and musician of Persian
descentborn in New York City. Her poems have been published by
Columbia University Press and Rattapallax. As a vocalist, she has
performed at events such as David Byrne's One Note at Carnegie Hall
and Bonnaroo. She teaches workshops on Rumi's poetry at
universities and festivals across the country.
"Magnetic in his eloquent reverence and his soulful intelligence. .
. .Having mastered the mathematical musicality of the quatrain, he
became a virtuoso of the ghazal with its series of couplets, each
invoking a different poetic image, each crowned with the same
refrain—a kind of kinetic sculpture of surprise, rapturous with
rhythm." —Maria Popova, The Marginalian “Best Books of the
Year”
“Haleh Liza Gatori’s ecstatic and piercing translation has lifted a
veil, bringing Rumi closer into the quick of our present. Each poem
is a divine invitation. Free your mind. Drown in love.” —V
(formerly Eve Ensler)
”Haleh Liza Gafori’s translations of Rumi are exquisite. Gorgeous,
fluent, faithful translations, rendering Rumi’s voice on the page
with an original integrity that is as skilled as it is
unforgettable." —Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of On Being’s Poetry Unbound
“Rumi, ancient and eternal. Magnetic in his eloquent devotion and
his soulful intelligence. Majestic in his whirling silk robe and
his defiant disdain for his culture’s worship of
status. Volcanic with poetry. . . . A dazzling selection of
his poetry, including some never previously alive in English,
appears in Gold, newly translated and inspirited by poet and
musician Haleh Liza Gafori.” —Maria Popova
“Haleh Liza Gafori’s energetic translation highlights the
timelessness of Rumi’s work, delivering unforgettable phrases.
Rumi’s introspective nature...cosmic vision...and deeply
contemplative yet accessible poems star in this worthy
translation.” —Publishers Weekly
“In this eloquent, faithful translation of the popular 13th-century
poet and mystic Rumi, Persian American poet and musician Gafori
opens a fresh window on Rumi’s spiritual quest and his urgent
invitation to readers to embrace a more enlightened existence.
Ecstatic, spinning lines wind through mystical paradoxes—wordless
speaker, footless runner, placeless place—toward a sense of wonder
and oceanic love.” —Library Journal
“Haleh Liza Gafori’s Gold is everything Rumi was himself—sacred,
profane, laugh out loud funny, deeply earnest, demotic, and yes,
Persian. There’s a rich fluency here not just in idiom but in
gesture, in spirit. It’s uncanny to encounter
eight-hundred-year-old verse this urgent: 'Misers rule. Generosity
fades from memory,' Rumi writes. Still, 'Your eyes see. Your heart
is full.' Gafori’s Rumi teaches me how to wander into
mystery—“humble as soil”—without galloping toward some hasty and
inorganic conclusion: 'A barren moon shines. A sour world smiles.
What do I know but the light shining down?' What a gift this is,
what gold.” —Kaveh Akbar, Poetry Editor at The Nation
“Rumi’s beautiful melding of wildness, insight and untrammeled joy
has found a true, unerring voice in Haleh Liza Gafori, whose own
fine abilities as a poet bring these hallowed Persian, poetic gifts
anew into 21st century English.” —David Whyte
“I have been longing for this gorgeous book, this specific
translation of Rumi’s poems my whole life. As Rumi says in one of
the book's poems, 'Wherever the soul soared/Fire was there first.'
Haleh Liza Gafori has taken Rumi’s original Farsi text and
unleashed its fire. My soul soars reading each poem. She has given
us a great and graceful gift.” —Elizabeth Lesser
"Translating a 13th-century Persian poet whose work is deeply
rooted in Islamic theology and Qur’anic language, infused with
mystical vision, and laced with heretical imagery, is not a project
for the faint of heart. Many of Rumi’s recent English translators
or ‘para-translators,’ have no knowledge of Persian, the work’s
cultural context, or Islam. Many speakers of modern Persian lack
the literary gifts to craft English poems of equivalent power.
Despite all this, the core luminosity of Rumi’s work has shone
through. It gives me great pleasure, and relief, to say that I
think Haleh Liza Gafori’s translations are the closest an English
translator has come to bringing it all together. . . . Gold is a
perfect introduction to the illuminations in Rumi’s work, or an
important addition to your Rumi bookshelf." —Elizabeth T. Gray,
Jr., Hyperallergic
“These are the Rumi translations we’ve been waiting for! In Gold,
translated by Persian- American poet/singer Haleh Liza Gafori,
meanings and images hurtle us towards love and ecstasy, just as
Rumi intended. You won’t read these words so much as dance with
them. Hang on tight as they begin whirling. Unbuckle your seat belt
as they take flight. Pure Gold!” —Bob Holman
“Haleh Liza Gafori’s translations are 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.” —Marilyn Hacker, Academy of
American Poets Chancellor 2008-2014
“Gold selects not from that sober, mature work but from the lyric
reveries of Rumi’s metamorphosis, the fruit of altered states. . .
. Rhythmic, intuitive arrangements revive the conditions in which
this poetry came into being. . . . Far from new-age quietism, these
poems urge the heart to be alert, amazed, to meet the ‘sour world’
awake.” —4Columns
“In clear, shimmering language, neither simplified nor
obscurantist, Gafori renders the ecstatic core of Rumi’s vision in
an American idiom that both honors the Islamic background of the
poems and insists that what we mean by ‘surrender’ cannot be
delimited by any psychology or religious tradition.” - Leonard
Schwartz, author of The New Babel: Towards a Poetics of the
Mid-East Crises
“Whether you wolf it down in a single exuberant sitting like we did
or parcel these poems out, one a day over 80 days, you can’t help
but be caught up with what I think we can all agree by this point
are timeless sentiments. . . We got an almighty kick out of Haleh
Liza Gafori’s translation and reckon you will too.” —Bookmunch
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