Exhibit Reception: "Praying Out Loud in Public: The Coleman Barks Collection"

Join the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library for a reception celebrating the opening of the new exhibition Praying Out Loud in Public: The Coleman Barks Papers.

More About the Exhibition

Born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Coleman Barks studied English literature at University of California, Berkeley, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before joining the faculty of the University of Georgia in 1967. He taught at UGA until his retirement in 1997.

During his early career his  writing explored experiences of love and parenthood, the death of his parents, and divorce; he is the father of two, and grandfather of five. In 1976, he began translating the work of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Islam’s most revered poet, into modern American free verse. These translations launched the 13th-century poet to the top of bestseller lists and gave Barks wide notoriety. Over his long career he has published eleven collections of his own poetry, and twenty-two volumes of Rumi translations. Praying Out Loud in Public displays selected items from the Coleman Barks Papers, opened for research at the Hargrett Library in 2018. Barks’ archive contains roughly fifty thousand pages of manuscripts. These reams of longhand or typed drafts are complemented and illuminated by forty-five years of dream journals – waking recollections, plus jotted first drafts and introspective notes that afford a revealing look into a creative life. The collection also contains personal and professional correspondence, photographs, and other memorabilia.

The exhibit will remain on display through Aug. 23 in the Rotunda Gallery of the Special Collections Building.