Painting from the Palette of Love

“Certain sages belong to the whole of humanity. The fifteenth-century sage Kabir, straddling Indian and Islamic traditions, is among them. His poetry has been translated from the original Hindi by able translators like Rabindranath Tagore previously. With the passage of time, those earlier literal translations are showing their age. Thomas Rain Crowe’s versions here, working with the earlier translations, have a freshness that brings them to contemporary American tastes. His style follows in the tradition of Robert Bly, with a deep familiarity with Sufi wisdom in the American context. Let us take up Thomas Rain Crowe’s updating of Tagore and dance in the realization that ‘The Beloved lives inside of you!’”—Omid Safi, Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke University, and founder of Illuminated Courses and Tours

THOMAS RAIN CROWE is an internationally published author, editor, and translator of more than thirty books, including the multi-award-winning nature memoir Zoro’s Field- My Life in the Appalachian Woods (2005); an anthology of contemporary Celtic-language poets titled Writing the Wind- A Celtic Resurgence (1997); a collection of original verse, The Laugharne Poems, written at the Dylan Thomas Boathouse in Laugharne, Wales (1997); two volumes of translations of the poetry of the Sufi poet Hafiz-In Wineseller’s Street (Iran Books) and Drunk on the Wine of the Beloved (Shambhala Publications); and The Perfect Work- Poems of Hafiz, a work of poetry and music (Fern Hill Records, 1999). He has been an editor of major literary and cultural journals and anthologies and is the founder and publisher of New Native Press. He lived in San Francisco during the 1970s, working alongside the people cited in his book Starting from San Francisco- The Baby Beat Generation and the Second San Francisco Renaissance (Third Mind Books, 2018), and was an original member of the group responsible for the resurrection of Beatitude magazine during those years. A longtime resident of the southern Appalachians, he lives in the Tuckasegee watershed in the “Little Canada” community of Jackson County in western North Carolina.