Rumi: Poet of the Heart

How much you enjoy Haydn Reiss's homage to one of the hottest poets in America today, the 13th century Sufi mystical poet Rumi, will depend, in large part, on your taste for slowly read cryptic verse and knowing-smiles-all-around commentary from interviewees running the spiritual and intellectual gamut from Huston Smith to Deepak Chopra. Narrated by Debra Winger, Rumi: Poet of the Heart is a nicely filmed overview of the life and work of Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-73), a religious scholar and popular teacher who underwent a deep spiritual conversion at the age of 37, when he met and befriended the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz. When Shams disappeared four years later, possibly murdered by Rumi's jealous students, Rumi left his post and devoted his life to mystical poetry. Notable, especially considering the time and place, is Rumi's embracing acceptance of all religious branches (in looking at the various altars set up to honor God, Rumi saw a single impulse to worship), and his earthy, ecstatic, often humorous characterization of his one, true thing--a joyous, life-celebrating love of God. In fact, Rumi is credited as the founder of the Mevlevi's (the whirling dervishes whose eloquent, spinning dance removes outside stimuli and focuses the mind on devotion). The primary interviewees here are Coleman Barks, the "popularizer" of Rumi's poetry with his "versions" of translations of Rumi's poetry (Barks doesn't work from the original writing, but through a Sufi teacher), and Robert Bly, whose reading of his translation of Rumi's "Night and Sleep" is far more interesting than his speculations on the relationship between the younger Rumi and older Shams (the mentor/initiation theory that has become something of an interpretive tic in Bly over the last decade). Given the fact that Deepak Chopra recently released a CD of Rumi's poetry, read by Madonna and Goldie Hawn (hey, let's hold that snickering down), among others, and Oliver Stone is contemplating a Rumi bio-pic, this is a smart purchase. Personally, I think Rumi's poetry is better read than listened to, but that may just be me. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)