In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented his friend Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems meticulously inscribed in his own hand and bearing the title Poems to Night. This evocative sequence of poems, which echoes some of the great themes of German romanticism, is now thought to represent one of the key stages in the creative breakthrough and spiritual evolution of the preeminent European poet of the twentieth century.This collection brings all the poems together in English for the first time and is enhanced by a rich selection of further poems Rilke dedicated to night at various stages of his life. The Poems to Night and the background to them are illuminated by the translator's valuable introduction.
Review
[A] gorgeous collection of odes to the night and darkness - ExBerliner
An excellent introduction to Rilke in English, and Will Stone has executed his task with admirable aplomb - London Grip
About the Author
RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875 - 1926) is considered one of the greatest German-language writers to have ever lived. He is best known for his Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
Will Stone, born 1966, is a poet, essayist and literary translator. His first poetry collection Glaciation (Salt, 2007), won the international Glen Dimplex Award for poetry in 2008. Shearsman Books has re-published his subsequent critically appraised collections. Will's poetry translations include To the Silenced - Selected Poems of Georg Trakl (Arc, 2005) Emile Verhaeren Poems (Arc, 2013), Georges Rodenbach Poems (Arc, 2017) and Friedrich Hölderlin's Life Poetry and Madness by Wilhelm Waiblinger (2018). Pushkin Press published his translation of Montaigne by Stefan Zweig in 2015, Messages from a Lost World - Europe on the Brink by Stefan Zweig in 2016 and The Art of the City - Rome, Florence, Venice by Georg Simmel in September 2018. Encounters and Destinies - A Farewell to Europe by Stefan Zweig and Surrender to Night - Collected Poems of Georg Trakl will be published in 2019. Will has contributed poems, translations, essays and reviews to a range of publications including The London Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, Apollo Magazine, the RA Magazine, The White Review, Poetry Review and Agenda.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
O now we have, with what whimpering
caressed ourselves, shoulders and eyelids.
And night has withdrawn into the rooms
like a wounded beast, in pain through us.
Were you elected from all for me,
was the sister not sufficient?
Lovely as a valley to me was your essence,
and now too, from the prow of the heavens
it bows down an unfailing apparition
and he takes possession. Where to go?
Alas, with the gesture of mourning
you incline towards me, un-consoled.
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