Thomas Rain Crowe Presents the Mystical Poems of Kabir

Join us at City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, October 7th at 3 p.m. for a presentation by Thomas Rain Crowe on his new book Painting from the Palette of Love: The Mystical Poetry of Kabir.

Omid Safi, Professor of Islamic Studies, at Duke University, and founder of Illuminated Courses and Tours, said of 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 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!"

Thomas Rain Crowe is an internationally published and recognized author of more than thirty books, including the multi-award winning nature memoir Zoro's Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods and numerous collections of poetry, including Learning to Dance, The Laugharne Poems, and modern renditions of the poetry of the Sufi mystic poet Hafiz. He is also the founder and publisher of New Native Press, a small literary press that started in 1979. He lives in the Tuckasegee watershed of North Carolina.