rumi roaming is a volume unfolding in print, virtual and real spaces. It starts from Rumi’s poetics to generate new responses to contemporary issues. rumi roaming showcases performance, poetry, scholarly prose, creative writing, fiction, photo-text compositions, and video that are occasioned by the circulation of Rumi’s poetry in different contexts and languages as well as by his life and work.

rumi roaming is inspired by Rumi’s own itinerant life trajectory across Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey and the spiritual exhortations of his ghazals. Interspersed with new translations of some of Rumi’s ghazals, the volume is particularly significant for its attempt to engage with Rumi’s poetry through decolonial reflections on language, human connections, place, and spirituality. The main language of is English, but some of the content appears in Spanish, Arabic and Persian, all with English translation; and there is an engagement toward translating a Rumi ghazal into Nuu-Cha-Nulth, one of the languages of the Indigenous people of Pacific Northwest.

Featuring a diverse group of Canadian and international contributors, rumi roaming is initiated, curated and edited by artist and writer Gita Hashemi and produced by SubversivePress in partnership with Quattro Books.