By Erin Blakeslee, Contributing Blogger

I may be a latecomer to the show (after all, the magazine in question has been in publication since 1974), but I read through my first sample copy of The Sun today. Cover to cover. I couldn't put it down.

For those who, like me just hours before, are uninitated, The Sun is an advertisement-free mag that publishes essays, interviews, fiction, and poetry that are politically challenging and philosophically provocative. It's clean, intimate layout is seductive: there's no fat on this baby, and no distracting margin ads listing MFA-program faculty, seminar dates, or book blurbs.

The October 2007 issue of The Sun features a moving, in-depth interview with poet and translator Coleman Barks, who discusses the enduring influence of Rumi, the 13th century Persian mystic poet. Part of the interview can be read here.

If you're hooked, you can order a free sample of The Sun (new reading material with nothing to lose!).