Coleman Barks

American poet and translator, born April 23, 1937, Chattanooga, Tennessee - died February 23, 2026. He taught poetry and creative writing at the University of Georgia for thirty years. He is the author of numerous Rumi translations and was a student of Sufism since 1977. His work with Rumi was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers's Language of Life series on PBS, and he is a featured poet and translator in Bill Moyers's poetry special, "Fooling with Words."