Coleman Barks, an American poet and writer, died on February 23, 2026, at age 88.
He was an American poet and literature faculty member at the University of Georgia. Born Coleman Bryan Barks in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he grew up on the campus of the Baylor School, where his father was headmaster.
He received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1959 and a master’s in English from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961. Barks was widely known as an interpreter of Rumi, rewriting the poems based on other English translations despite not speaking or reading Persian.
Coleman Bryan Barks (April 23, 1937 – February 23, 2026) was an American poet and literature faculty member at the University of Georgia. Although he neither spoke nor read Persian, he was a popular interpreter of Rumi, rewriting the poems based on other English translations.