Heartwork explores Rilke’s insistence that we are to “live the questions” in our lives before we can hope to discover any “answers.” How do we do this? He felt that this involved “finding images for [our] transformations,” and lived his vocation as a poet in pursuit of that longing. His poems continue to open us to the wholeness that is always alive within us, even amid what we experience as fragments of brokenness.

We will begin with his query—from an unpublished poem written near the end of his life—where he pondered, “Who sings the distant heart / that lingers, whole, in the midst of all things?” We’ll go on to explore a handful of poems, several from his early Book of Hours and several from his late Sonnets to Orpheus, wondering—with him—how our own “heart-work” might guide us into greater resilience and authenticity.

Mark S. Burrows is a poet, scholar, and teacher is a Rilke scholar and award-winning translator of Rilke’s poetry.

Read more about Mark S. Burrows here. Craft talk is $25.00. Register early for this special in-depth poetry exploration with a renowned Rilke scholar.