"Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see. "

For beyond the methods and modes of presentation, the essence for performers and audience alike is the direct impact of Rumi’s words. “Rumi is astounding, fertile, abundant, almost more an excitable library of poetry than a person,” said Robert Bly, the American poet who first suggested that Barks translate Rumi. “When I started reading Rumi, all at once I felt at home. I think many readers of his work have that feeling.”

According to Coleman Barks himself, Rumi “is trying to get us to feel the vastness of our true identity...the joy of being human is uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the ruin.”

“To be working with these words written almost 800 years ago that will be read and listened to 800 years from now,” noted John Heckel, “that alone is a profound experience.”