Coleman Barks (born in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is a poet and translator best known for his widely popular English versions of the thirteenth-century Persian mystic poet Rumi. After earning a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, he taught English at the University of Georgia for many years. His Rumi translations, collected in volumes including The Essential Rumi (HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), have sold millions of copies and introduced Rumi to a vast English-speaking audience. While not Farsi-speaking translations in the scholarly sense, his interpretive versions are celebrated for their lyric accessibility. His own original poetry collections include The Juice (1972) and Gourd Seed (1993).