That show was a real treat, and well worth hearing once more: Coleman Barks reading live at Asheville’s Fine Arts Theater on April 26th, with bassist Eliot Wadopian and percussionist Byron Hedgepeth. It assuredly wasn’t your standard poetry reading.

Barks is well-known, of course, as the premiere translator of the works of the 13th Century Persian mystic poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, but he’s a master poet in his own right, and in this performance gave us both his own work and his translations from Rumi and Hafez.

On an earlier visit to Asheville, Coleman came by the studio to talk about (among many other things) his long relationship with Rumi’s poetry; part of that interview is featured in the show, too.

As always, the show will be available all next week from the Archive page as a stream and free podcast.

Enjoy, and I’ll be back live in the studio (if the sky don’t fall) next week.

Jeff

Cross-posted at Natures.