Hand of Poetry

Lectures and new translations illuminating the work of Persia’s mystic poets.
The Hand of Poetry offers entry into the world of beauty and truth. Seven lectures on Persian poetry given by Hazrat Inayat Khan are followed by some of the poetry he discusses, including pieces from Sanai, Attar, Rumi, Saadi, and Hafiz—all newly translated by the poet Coleman Barks. This revised edition also includes two additional chapters by Hazrat Inayat Khan, drawn from original source material.

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882 1927) came to Europe and America from his native India with a message of love, harmony, and beauty that was a new approach to harmonizing Western and Eastern spirituality. He established a school of spiritual training based upon traditional Sufi teachings infused with the vision of the unity of religious ideals and the awakening of humanity to the divinity within. Inayat Khan died in India in 1927, leaving a significant body of recorded discourse and instruction on all things pertaining to spiritual ideals in the midst of life in the world.

Coleman Barks is a renowned poet and the bestselling interpreter of Sufi poetry. He has translated more than a dozen volumes of Rumi’s poetry, including The Illuminated Rumi (1997) and The Essential Rumi (1995), often in collaboration with Persian scholar John Moyne. Barks was prominently featured in both of Bill Moyers’s PBS television series on poetry, The Language of Life, and he has collaboratively produced his Rumi translations with music and dance ensembles including the Paul Winter Consort and Zuleikha. In 2004 Barks received the Juliet Hollister Award for his work supporting interfaith understanding, and in 2006 the University of Tehran awarded Barks an honorary doctorate in recognition of his contributions to the field of Rumi translation. Barks’s translations are noted for their accessible lyricism.