October 15-17, 2004
Coleman wrote: “Of course we don’t know in January what we might talk about next October, but we really look forward to it. We feel brave. Robert and I have never collaborated on a retreat like this. He will probably have definite ideas, and they will sound deeply important to our lives as we struggle to be honest and yet delighted and full of energy. And they will be. Robert is on point and much smarter than I am. I have more formal training, but that has worn off. Robert is older than any of us, though, and of Norwegian extraction. So get ready for moods. He thinks of me as the cheerful Southern Peer Gynt to his morbid Brand, but I can’t read Ibsen. In preparation for October I will re-read Hans My Hedgehog several times. I intuit that fairytale to be about the retiring hermit poet (me) and the huge rooster he rides (what I feel strongly about), which must periodically be re-fitted with horseshoes (poems). Ryokan is also bound to come up, the Japanese poet whose dates correspond to William Blake’s. They probably never met, but we need not limit ourselves to those who have ever been in the same room. Like Rumi and his father, Bahauddin.”
“More seriously, Robert and I love ecstatic poetry from many different traditions. This weekend will be a chance for us to celebrate our experience of the ways of truth and beauty. Questions of form and elegance, of depth and psychic weight, will be approached. Enthusiasm and discipline. The longed-for conversation, the darkness around us. Mystery we take in and breathe out every moment. Silence. The practical livelihood problems of poets in this culture may be mentioned, their alliance with universities, and the place of our poets, and makers of every kind, in the effort to help government and corporations become more compassionate. We hope to honor, or at least point to, poets who have entangled language with such mystery in a kind of inward music.” The autumn leaves will also be sharing the joy of their ecstatic colors.
Coleman Barks is Professor Emeritus of English from the University of Georgia. He was writing poetry and teaching literature at the University of Georgia in 1976 when the poettranslator and cultural gadfly Robert Bly handed him a book of scholarly translations of Rumi, saying. “These poems need to be released from their cages!” Coleman had never heard of Rumi until that moment, but now eighteen volumes of Rumi translations are attributed to Dr. Barks. The Essential Rumi, The Illuminated Rumi, and Rumi: the Book of Love continue high in the Amazon rankings. Five books of his own poetry have appeared, most recently Tentmaking and Club: Granddaughter Poems.
Robert Bly is one of American’s foremost poets. The Light Around the Body won the National Book Award. He has published many other poetry collections, as well as translations of Kabir, Rilke, Lorca, Jimenez, Jacobsen, Vallejo, Neruda, and more. His prose book Iron John: A Book About Men was a runaway bestseller in the early 1990s that galvanized the men’s movement into a major social force. An outspoken critic of the war in Vietnam, as well as more recent American invasions, Robert Bly is mentor to the men’s movement, its best-known spokesman, and an advocate of the centrality of myths, stories, and poetry in our lives. We hope you will take this rare opportunity to join this distinguished, gentle, and tough man and his old friend Coleman for this rare gathering. Sign up early.