You can download this letter from Mark S. Burrows here.
9 December 2024
Dear friends,
On behalf of The Poets Corner and my co-hosts for the evening, Pádraig and Krista, my thanks to you for joining us to explore what Rilke’s writings mean for us today. And yes, to mark his 149th birthday (Dec. 4, 1875) as we have done, around that date, for the last four years.
If you’re interested in delving more deeply into Rilke, you may want to sign up for the online craft talk, “Everything Matters: The Creative Imagination of Rainer Maria Rilke” coming up on March 20, 2025. We’ll consider what Rilke meant when he suggested that “poems are not feelings, but experiences,” and what it means to encounter—and write—poems with that in mind. Rilke also insisted that everything, to the minutest of things, was alive and belonged as one part of what he called “the Whole.” His poems encourage us to widen the lens of our perception to the point that we begin to see that—and how—“everything matters” in our lives, and in the world we inhabit together.
If you missed past “Reading Rilke Today” gatherings—the last three together with Pádraig and others—you can access the recordings at the Poets Corner website (www.thepoetscorner.org/events); just scroll down to “Past Events” and there you are!).
To find the poems we heard last night: The five poems we heard Pádraig explore at the outset of our evening together were all taken from a wonderful, but regrettably out-of-print collection translated by Franz Wright, entitled The Unknown Rilke (1990). This book collects little-known poems of Rilke’s along with fragments from unfinished (and unpublished) poems (in Part III) from the final decades of his life. Rilke had envisioned publishing a final collection, intending to call it Fragments—after completing the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, both of which appeared in early 1923—but the progress of the disease that led to his death in late December, 1926, prevented that from happening.
Krista followed with reflections on several passages from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (see especially the letter from May 4, 1904; this short collection is available in many modern versions). She then turned to several poems—all untitled—from Rilke’s early Book of Hours, taken from Part I of that book which the poet entitled “The Book of Monastic Life.” These are available in many translations; she cited several of them—all of which Rilke left untitled—from the popular rendering of Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God). They are also to be found in my translation, the single English edition of these poems in their original version: Prayers of a Young Poet (3rd revised edition 2023; the two poems Krista referred to begin “I believe in all that has never been said” and “God speaks to each one of us before we’re made,” cited as nos. 60 and 12 in Prayers of a Young Poet).
For more about Krista, see www.onbeing.org, and for Pádraig, www.padraigotuama.com.
Together, we explored the final sonnet from Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus (II.29) in my new translation, which begins with the vivid line “Quiet friend of the many distances, feel / how your breath expands the room.” Near the end of the program, Pádraig also mentioned the second poem from Prayers of a Young Poet, “I live my life in widening rings…” I closed the program citing the final poem from this collection (no. 68), a portrait of the last “kobzar”—the blind bards of the Ukraine Rilke had heard about during his first trip to Russia in 1899—who gathered the community’s songs to keep them alive—which is our vocation in these times of deep uncertainty and growing conflict.
Several of you asked about good biographies on Rilke. I’d start with the small memoir written by Rilke’s early lover and lifelong mentor and friend, Lou Andreas-Salomé: You Alone Are Real to Me: Remembering Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Angela von der Lippe). Beyond that (as Pádraig mentioned), you’ll find an extensive Introduction and Afterword in Prayers of a Young Poet to the “early” Rilke and, for his later life, the Introduction and Afterword in my new translation of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus (2024). You’ll also discover much about his life and the abiding voice of his writings for our times in my new book, co-authored with Stephanie Dowrick: You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke (2024). Of the many biographies about Rilke’s life and writings, I would recommend Donald Prater’s A Ringing Glass: The Life of Rainer Maria Rilke, which draws heavily on Rilke’s own writings—poems, letters and journals.
And, finally, to the question, “Who are the Rilkes of today?” Among those some of you mentioned Ocean Vuong, Ada Limon, and Naomi Shihab Nye. There are many others; listen in to heard Pádraig’s podcast, “Poetry Unbound.” I’d add another obvious one: Pádraig Ó Tuama; look for his forthcoming book of poems, Kitchen Hymns, due out next month.
As I mentioned last night, the next two years are big ones for Rilke commemorations—2025 as the 150th anniversary of his birth and 2026 as the centenary of his death. For those of you who’d like to know about upcoming Rilke events I’ll be leading, do consider joining us for my craft-talk (through The Poets Corner) on March 20, 2025: “Everything Matters: Exploring the Creative Imagination with Rainer Maria Rilke” (for more on this, follow the link at https://www.thepoetscorner.org/craft-talks/everything-matters).
You can also check in on my website (www.soul-in-sight.org) for other events, including two six-day retreats next year in Europe: a gathering at the beautiful Bonnevaux Retreat Centre (WCCM) near Poitiers (France) from Apr. 29 – May 4, 2025, and another at the gracious St. Columba Hotel, on the Isle of Iona, from Oct. 28 – Nov. 2, 2025. Details for both will be announced soon. Notices of other events and retreats, both online and in the US and elsewhere, will be posted shortly on my website.
In the meantime, our thanks once again for your participation in this marvelous conversation about Rilke’s enduring voice in our times.
With every good wish,
Mark S. Burrows