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Coleman Barks

When I was a student at the University of Georgia in the early 1980's, I was fortunate enough to take a poetry class taught by Coleman Barks. He is a big bear of a man, soft-spoken and funny, and his classes were always lively and engaging.

His class was not conventional. We brought in our poetry, read it, and talked about it. (In that sense it foreshadowed all the classes I would take in grad school a few years later.) There was an eclipse that spring in Athens, and it coincided with our class time. So we all went up to the roof of the Fine Arts building and watched the eclipse, and talked about it. Another time, Coleman brought in food that had been sitting on top of a filing cabinet in his office for many years and had morphed into otherworldly objects, like 11 year old hot dog buns. Towards the end of the semester, he brought in his wonderful camera and all of us took pictures of each other. (It was a small group and we all sat around a big round table.) I still have that photo somewhere.

Coleman is now something of a celebrity, because of his interpretations of Rumi, but to me he will always be simply Coleman. Long after I graduated, and he became famous, I was able to reach him on the phone and he gave me good advice about the publication of my first book.

I hope he will be around a lot longer, so we can all share in his poetry and his magic.

 

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