How does a body of poetry spoken more than seven hundred years ago find its way onto today’s best-seller lists? The answer lies in the ecstatic verses of the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi, who continues to speak the universal language of the human soul.
These four programs feature deep and illuminating dialogues with Coleman Barks—the celebrated American poet and preeminent translator credited with bringing Rumi’s voice vividly into the modern world. Barks, who passed away at his home in Athens, Georgia, on February 23, 2026, at the age of 88, devoted his life to sharing the timeless wisdom of this great mystic.
Drawn from the New Dimensions program archive, these four specially selected interviews invite you to experience the fire, the madness, the passion, and the mystery that is Rumi.
The Way Of The Heart With RumiWhen asked about living a life of the heart, Barks says, “Rumi has many ways of talking about that. Somehow breaking the container of the ego and moving out into some mystery. He says,’jars of spring water are not enough anymore. Being contained is not enough. Take us down to the river and then eventually to the ocean, the shoreless ocean.’ [There is a] kind of tenderness toward existence and a generosity toward human beings, and I’m still trying to learn it from doing the poems and just living my life.” In this far ranging conversation, Barks takes us on a journey with stories of Rumi. Read more »
Rumi has the magnificent idea that human consciousness is a continually evolving thing and that we never stop anywhere. We are not finished. Barks tells us that Rumi has asked, “What have I ever lost by dying? Why should I fear the next death?” Barks goes on to say, “We’ve died to all these different ways of being, regions of consciousness, and we will die to this one. But there is no need to fear it because it has always developed into something more magnificent. I just love that idea of the evolving soul.” Read more »
The Ecstatic Soul – Jelaluddin Rumi: His Life And PoetryHere Barks tells us how the soul makes art that can tell us of things to come, How you can balance the paradox of ecstatic grief, and how Rumi’s relationship with his teacher, Shams of Tabriz, inspired his poetry, and more. Read more »
Drunk with the Divine, Rumi wrote twenty thousand poems of mystical, ineffable love of God. “There is a ferocity in his longing that maybe we don’t understand,” says Barks. Listen in and understand a little better. A wondrous, exhilarating look at the exultant poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi, the thirteenth-century Sufi poet, with Coleman Barks. Read more »
