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Selected Poems of Rumi
A curated introduction to Rumi's lyric and didactic poetry for contemporary readers.
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What this page presents as Selected Poems of Rumi is not a single book written by Rumi, but a selective gateway into two profoundly different seas of his poetry: the Masnavi, six books of didactic verse composed late in his life at the encouragement of his disciple Husam al-Din Chalabi, and the Divan-e Shams (or Divan-e Kabir), the vast collection of ghazals that poured from the spiritual crisis surrounding his encounter with and loss of Shams of Tabriz. These works differ in voice, purpose, and even audience. Bringing selections from both together is not merely archival; it reveals the full range of Rumi's voice, from a teacher telling stories to a lover crying out.
Two Voices, One Poet
The ghazals of the Divan-e Shams are usually brief, impassioned, and often composed at the height of ecstasy or loss. Many close not with Rumi's own name but with Shams's, as though the poet has dissolved his identity within the poem. The Masnavi's tales—from the parrot and the merchant to the opening Song of the Reed—are calmer, more didactic, and more layered. Each begins with an apparently simple story that gradually opens into a mystical reflection on the self, love, or knowledge.
The Masnavi's opening image, a reed cut from the reed-bed and lamenting its separation, is a key to both works. Whether in the fiery ghazals of the Divan-e Shams or the measured stories of the Masnavi, the central subject is the same: longing to return to one's source.
Themes and Images
Readers today encounter images drawn from daily life in thirteenth-century Konya that speak with surprising force to the modern world: the reed separated from the reed-bed, the moth consumed by flame, the turning of sama as a metaphor for cosmic motion, and love not as a private emotion but as the force that turns the world. Rumi renders them in a language that moves among formal Persian, everyday speech, and occasional Arabic and Turkish words—a reflection of a life lived at the crossroads of Iranian, Arab, and Anatolian cultures.
Listen to the reed and the tale it tells, how it sings of separation.
Why Read This Book Today?
For readers who have never read Rumi, entering directly into all six books of the Masnavi or the thousands of ghazals in the Divan-e Shams can be daunting. By choosing examples from both, this selection offers a shorter but still representative path: a first encounter with Rumi's voice before deciding which sea—the Masnavi's measured teaching or the Divan-e Shams's blazing ecstasy—to explore more deeply.