Poetry

By Rainer Maria Rilke Over the course of six years, Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, suffering and the nature of advice itself; these profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for writers and artists of all kinds. This volume also contains the 'Letter from a Young Worker', a striking polemic against Christianity written too in letter form. Hardcover128 pagesPenguin Clothbound Classics, 20234.49 x 0.55 x 6.46 inchesISBN 9780241620038 German Poetry

Letters to a Young Poet

Edited by Charlotte Lee A greatest-hits selection from some of the most popular poets of the Romantic movement, including Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel, and Heine, in a gorgeously jacketed small hardcover. Unlike the more earnest English Romantic poets, followers of the Romantic movement in Germany valued wit and humor along with beauty. Admiration for nature is also prominent in their poetry, and in particular the dramatic forests which still cover large areas of Germany. Love and death crop up repeatedly as themes in such famous works as Goethe’s “Elf King” and Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Characters from myth and folklore abound—most famously Lorelei, an enchantress who is associated with the rock of the same name on the bank of the Rhine, who is featured in several poems in this volume. Also gathered here are such favorites as Hölderlin’s “Bread and Wine,” Schiller’s “The Visit of the Gods,” Eichendorff’s “Nocturne,” and Heine’s “The Magic Month of May,” along with works by the most famous women writers of the Romantic era, including Karoline von Günderrode and Sophie Mereau.Everyman’s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.Hardcover256 pagesEveryman's Library, 20244.125 x 6.25 inchesISBN 9781101908358Poetry, Classics, German Romanticism

German Romantic Poets

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by Martyn CrucefixRainer Maria Rilke developed one of the most singular poetic styles of the twentieth century. Visionary yet always anchored in the real world, his poems give profound expression to fundamental questions of love and death, of the chaos of the modern world as well as the spiritual consolation of art and nature.Change Your Life draws from across Rilke’s career to offer a comprehensive view of his most essential poetry, featuring major selections from the great Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus alongside less frequently anthologised work. In these dazzling new translations by acclaimed poet Martyn Crucefix, Rilke’s poems beguile with fresh insight and mystery.Paperback256 pagesPushkin Press, 20245.15 x 7.7 x 0.77 inchesISBN 9781782278580Poetry, Austrian Writer

Change Your Life: Essential Poems

By Rainer Maria Rilke Edited by Peter Washington Translated by J.B. Leishman The Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets hardcover series is popular for its compact size and reasonable price which does not compromise content. Poems: Rilke contains poems from The Book of Images; New Poems; Requiem for a Friend; Poems, 1906-1926; French Poems; The Life of Mary; Sonnets to Orpheus; The Duino Elegies; Letters to a Young Poet; and an index of first lines.Hardcover256 pagesEveryman's Library, 19964.1 x 6.25 InchesISBN 9780679450986Poetry, Literature

Rilke: Poems (Everyman's Library)

Edited by Emily Fragos Art and Artists: Poems is a sumptuous collection of visions in verse—the work of centuries of poets who have used their own art form to illuminate art created by others.A wide variety of visual art forms have inspired great poetry, from painting, sculpture, and photography to tapestry, folk art, and calligraphy. Included here are poems that celebrate Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, and Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Here are such well-known poems as John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts,” Homer’s immortal account of the forging of the shield of Achilles, and Federico García Lorca’s breathtaking ode to the surreal paintings of Salvador Dalí. Allen Ginsberg writes about Cezanne, Anne Sexton about van Gogh, Billy Collins about Hieronymus Bosch, and Kevin Young about Jean-Michel Basquiat. Here too are poems that take on the artists themselves, from Michelangelo and Rembrandt to Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keeffe. Altogether, this brilliantly curated anthology proves that a picture can be worth a thousand words—or a few very well-chosen ones.Hardcover256 pagesRandom House, 20124.4 x 6.48 inchesISBN 9780307959386 Poetry, Anthology

Art and Artists: Poems (Everyman's Pocket Poet Series)

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by Jessie LemontDuring three feverish weeks in 1922, Rainer Maria Rilke composed the 55 sonnets that constitute Sonnets to Orpheus. Inspired by the death of a friend's daughter, the poet felt that he was being compelled to write by the girl's ghost. At about the same time he also completed Duino Elegies, which he had begun ten years earlier. Intimately connected to the Sonnets in themes and sensibilities, the Elegies offer meditations on love, death, God, and life's meaning that express Rilke's irresolvable conflict between a longing for solitude and a painful loneliness.Although his poetry was recognized and admired by leading European artists, the Austro-Bohemian poet was virtually unknown during his lifetime, achieving international acclaim only with these final masterpieces. This edition presents translations by Jessie Lemont, praised by London's Times Literary Supplement for their presentation of Rilke as "a writer of short individual lyrics, often of incomparable, impressionist vividness, plastic vitality and symbolic suggestiveness."Reprint of The Fine Editions Press, New York, 1945 edition.Paperback112 pagesDover Publications, 2020Originally Published in 19235 x 8 inchesISBN 9780486838670Literature, Classic

Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies (Dover Thrift Editions)

By Rainer Maria Rilke Born in Prague when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and recognized today as a master of verse, poet Rainer Maria Rilke was considerably less well known in 1902 when he received a heartfelt letter from an aspiring poet. A 19-year-old student sent Rilke some of his verses, seeking an opinion of their worth. Rilke declined to offer a critique, instead encouraging the student to rely upon his own inner judgment: "Nobody can advise and help you, nobody. There is only one single means. Go inside yourself." This seemingly dismissive letter proved to be the first of ten, written during a six-year period that coincided with an important stage in Rilke's artistic development. The poet offered his young correspondent further advice on developing a rich inner life as well as guidance on broader philosophical and existential issues. These letters, which explore many of the themes that later emerged in Rilke's best works, remain a captivating source of insights into the artistic identity and process.Reprint of the Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1945 edition.Paperback80 pagesDover Publications, 20195 x 8 inchesISBN 9780486831855Literature, Classic

Letters to a Young Poet (Dover Thrift Editions)

This book was featured as part of our Literatur Café series. By Ulrich Baer Honorable Mention in the 2001 Harry Levin Prize, sponsored by the American Comparative Literature Association."This innovative study of the works of Baudelaire and Celan opens a new window on the history of modern identity in western culture."—Germanic Notes and ReviewsIn a bold reassessment, this book analyzes the works of Charles Baudelaire and Paul Celan, two poets who frame our sense of modern poetry and define the beginning and end of modernity itself.The two poets share a feature that seems to block their placement in such an easy chronological or historical scheme: each accounts for an experience that will not fully enter memory, but dissipates in the mind in the form of trauma, fragments, and shock. While Baudelaire, as Paul Valéry was the first to show, explores the trauma of the minute personal shocks of everyday existence in modern life, Celan engages with the catastrophic magnitude of the Holocaust and how it has altered our understanding of history. Can we relate the shocks registered in Baudelaire's poems to the historical horror addressed in Celan's work without denying either the singularity of suffering and loss or the uniqueness of the historical event of the Shoah?Drawing on trauma studies and Holocaust research, Remnants of Song challenges existing interpretations of Baudelaire and Celan by constantly holding in view both the aesthetic dimension of their works and their historical import. The author demonstrates that the act of engaging with a poem on its own terms may serve as an important model for an ethical response to the radical experiences of trauma. Answering Adorno's famous dictum that there can be no poetry after Auschwitz, he shows that Celan's poetry continues to posit its own truth by drawing on Baudelaire as a precedent—yet it does so in ways that have little to do with conventional understandings of history.Hardcover360 pagesStanford University Press, 20005.5 x 8.5 inches ISBN 9780804738262Literary Criticism

Remnants of Song: Trauma and the Experience of Modernity in Charles Baudelaire and Paul Celan

By Hannah ArendtTranslated and edited by Samantha Rose Hill with Genese Grill "A new volume of [Arendt’s] poetry reveals that the author of sobering works like The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition was writing ardent and intimate verse in her off-hours."—Srikanth Reddy, The Paris Review A landmark literary event, What Remains collects Arendt’s complete poetic oeuvre—never before published in English. Internationally renowned as one of the twentieth century’s foremost public intellectuals, Hannah Arendt was also intensely private. Though she often acknowledged that the language of poetry—especially that of Dickinson, Goethe, and Lowell—informed her work, only a few people knew that Arendt herself wrote poems. In fact, between 1923 and 1961, Arendt wrote seventy-four poems, many of them signposts in an otherwise unwritten autobiography. For nearly forty years after her death, these poems remained hidden among the archives of the Library of Congress, until 2011, when they were rediscovered by scholar and translator Samantha Rose Hill. Now, for the first time in English, Hill and Genese Grill present Arendt’s poems in chronological order, taking us from the zenith of the Weimar Republic to the Cold War, and from Marburg, Germany, to New York’s Upper West Side. Throughout, Arendt uses poetry to mark moments of joy, love, loss, and reflection. In “W. B.,” written in 1942, she remembers Walter Benjamin, who died near the French-Spanish border while attempting to flee the Nazis: “Gentle whispering melodies / Sound from the darkness. / We listen so we can let go.” So, too, she reflects on mutability and transience in 1946: “I know that the houses have fallen. / We entered the world in them, wonderfully sure, that they / were more durable than ourselves.” She tries to understand her place in the world: “Ironically foolish, / I’ve forgotten nothing, / I know the emptiness, / I know the burden, / I dance, I dance / In ironic splendor.” A gift to all readers of Arendt, this stunning, dual-language edition provides an unparalleled view into the inner sanctum of one of our most original thinkers. Hardcover208 pagesLiveright, 20245.8 x 0.8 x 8.6 inchesISBN 9781324090526 Poetry, Hannah Arendt

What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by Geoffrey Lehmann “The New Poems are for me Rilke’s greatest poems, written under the shadow of ‘mon grand ami Auguste Rodin’ to whom their second volume was dedicated. They are ‘method’ poems. Not waiting for inspiration, but taking the handicraft of a poem, and setting himself subjects, the way a shoemaker might, or a sculptor. ‘Thing-poems,’ Dinggedichte, poems about things, but also poems that are ‘a thing.’ The two volumes are, in my view, two of the most beautifully made poetic sequences ever.” —Michael Hofmann ”In Rilke not only do the stones and trees become human—as they have done always and everywhere poems have been made—but humans become things and nameless beings and only then gain their ultimate humanity.” —Robert Musil Fresh, beautiful new translations of one of the most important poets of all time, publishing in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke’s birth. Rilke is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, revered throughout the world. Geoffrey Lehmann has selected fifty of Rilke’s finest poems from the two volumes of New Poems, considered the center of gravity of Rilke’s achievement. Lehmann’s refined ear and perfect mastery of English verse form give his renderings of Rilke a precision and poise equal to that of the German originals. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Rilke’s birth, a master poet lives anew. Paperback128 pagesNYRB Poets, 20254.5 x 7 inchesISBN 9781681379944Poetry

Fifty Poems

By Friedrich Nietzsche Edited and translated by Ulrich Baer Friedrich Nietzsche presented many of his greatest insights in pithy, well-turned short phrases that do not follow any philosophical dogma. Instead, his chastening but ultimately life-affirming philosophy puts forth true love and friendship as our best hope in dark times. Here are Nietzsche’s key sayings about love from the vast body of his philosophical writings, which have influenced politics, philosophy, art and culture like few other works of world literature. As the first edition of its kind, this collection presents Nietzsche’s thoughts on love not as academic philosophy but as a guide to life. At turns delightful and astute—and always wise—Nietzsche on Love offers an original and startling glimpse into what one of the world’s foremost thinkers says about the fundamental experience of our lives. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, philologist, and Latin and Greek scholar. One of the greatest thinkers of all time, his ideas have exerted an immeasurable influence on philosophy, politics, art, literature, psychology, and popular culture around the world.Paperback 138 pages Warbler Press, 20205.06 x 0.35 x 7.81 inchesISBN 9781734452570Poetry, Letters

Nietzsche on Love

By Rainer Maria RilkeForeword by Damion SearlsTranslated from the German by M.D. Herter NortonA gorgeous edition of one of the most beloved classics of the twentieth century, published in celebration of W. W. Norton’s 100th anniversary. This slim volume of letters from the poet and mystic, Rainer Maria Rilke, to a nineteen-year-old cadet and aspiring poet named Franz Xaver Kappus, has touched millions of readers since it was first published in English in 1934. The translator, Mary Dows Herter Norton—a polymath extraordinaire with expertise in music, literature, and science, and who, along with her husband, William Warder Norton, founded the company that bears his name—played a crucial role in elevating Rilke’s reputation in the English-speaking world. This Norton Centenary Edition commemorates Norton, known as “Polly” to friends and colleagues, and the 100th anniversary of the publishing company she cofounded. An admiring foreword by Damion Searls—himself a recent translator of Rilke’s Letters—celebrates Polly’s stylistic achievement, and an afterword by Norton’s President, Julia A. Reidhead, honors her commitment to maintaining W. W. Norton & Company’s independence. This handsome new edition of a beloved classic brings Rilke’s enduring wisdom about life, love, and art to a new generation, in the translation that first introduced him to the English-speaking world.Hardcover160 pagesW.W. Norton & Company, 20235.8 x 0.6 x 8.6ISBN 9781324050728Letters

Letters to a Young Poet (The Norton Centenary Edition)

Original Price: $15.95 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Tyler Mills "In City Scattered, through gorgeous strands of speech, Tyler Mills perceptively reintegrates our sacred, forgotten past into a portrait of a woman whose self-possession and complexity are palpably rendered. Only a poet with such sensitivities of language can so clearly hear and interpret the immortal silence of history; only a poet attuned to her own incandescent spirit can test the oneiric nature of poetry with such vigor of mind."—Major Jackson "Tyler Mills’ The City Scattered is a rich document of the “inner architecture” and social displacements that occur under the “skies / of capital.” Its choral structure deftly links the late days of the Weimar Republic to labor in the age of Amazon. Through swift images and attention to the complexity of pleasure, Mills’ poems show the independence and alienation of workers, particularly women, for whom the “purse thickens” while unemployment rises and money is “losing value.” Her crisp, suggestive case study illuminates the confluence of precarity and prosperity at the heart of our era. “Do not lean out,” warns a sign on a window in one poem; but we’re already leaning closer to read."—Zach Savich Goblets of gin, fans of feathers, war-bombed bricks, loaves of bread, soot, smoke, and paper money—such are the tangible things that touched the lives of women who worked as wage laborers during an era of Europe of cabaret and hyperinflation. The crises of modernity and capital, as well as the human experiences of women and who loved, lost, and fought against the structures of privilege that all the while aided them during a fraught stretch of time between wars, come alive in City Scattered, a chapbook of poems that invite us to experience and examine the conditions of labor that echo those of our current day.Paperback44 pagesTupelo Press, 20228.27 x 5.83 x 0.11 InchesISBN 9781946482686Poetry, Literature

City Scattered: Cabaret for Four Voices

By Rainer Maria RilkeEdited and translated by Ulrich BaerRainer Maria Rilke's poetry and letters have inspired countless readers around the world with their wisdom and insight into how we can be more than ourselves without recourse to religion, politics, or ideology: through the experiences of art and love. Gathered here for the first time in original translations are Rilke's candid, piercing, and lyrical reflections on love–the experience he considered paramount for human existence but also, with the exception of death, the event for which we are least prepared. Selected from Rilke's poetry and his vast correspondence, these passages present Rilke's contemplations on falling in love, being in love, losing love, and the mystical ways in which love endures.Paperback136 pagesWarbler Press, 20205 x 7.8 x .3 inchesISBN 9781734588125Poetry, Letters

Rilke on Love

Edited by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows Meditations on Letting Go & Finding True Freedom. An elegant rendering of the great mystic's thoughts on the mysteries of the authentic life.This is a little book about soul freedom. It is a book about discovering the secret to all the things we most desire: contentment, meaning, peace of mind, and true freedom. This skillfully edited translation of selections from the writings of Meister Eckhart provides a roadmap to the spiritual life for contemporary seekers. Eckhart takes us on a journey of discovery; a journey in which we learn to let go, relinquish our need to know everything, and lose those things that we think are important for a life of worth. And in the end he shows us that the true secret is this: to find yourself, you must lose yourself. Here is timeless wisdom from a medieval mystic who has influenced a wide range of spiritual teachers and mystics both inside and outside the Christian tradition. Erich Fromm, Arthur Schopenhauer, Dag Hammarskj ld, Eckhart Tolle, Richard Rohr, D. T. Suzuki, Rudolf Steiner, and Matthew Fox have all credited Eckhart as being an important influence on their thought. In addition, his work has influenced the development of 20th-century American Buddhism and the Theosophical tradition.Divided into five sections—Seeking the Light, Facing Darkness, Risking Love, Knowing Nothing, and Embracing Everything—the book leads readers on the path to an authentic spiritual life. Paperback240 pagesHampton Roads Publishing, 20195 x 0.6 x 6.9 inchesISBN 9781571748478Theory and Aesthetics, Poetry

Meister Eckharts Book of Secrets: Meditations on Letting Go and Finding True Freedom

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by Joanna Macy and Anita BarrowsAn original translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's most famous work by acclaimed translators Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.Originally written from 1902-1908, Letters to a Young Poet is a compilation of famous German poet Rainer Maria Rilke's (1875-1926) thoughts and reflections on the vocation of writing. The letters urge his correspondent to look inward and understand his motivations for pursuing a life devoted to the written word, looking beyond those who attempt to criticize and critique his work. His advice can be extended to all young writers.For the first time in twenty years, Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy offer a new translation of this classic work that speaks to a new generation of artists, poets, and writers. With a new introduction and commentary on each letter, this edition places Rilke's letters in the context of today's world and the unique challenges of modern writers. Barrows and Macy are the first women to translate Letters to a Young Poet and their edition offers a fresh perspective on this work.Hardcover120 pagesRandom House, 2021Originally published in 19294.45 x 0.5 x 7.06 inchesISBN 9781611806861Poetry, Literature

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by Alfred Corn Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies are one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the twentieth century. Begun in 1912 while the poet was a guest at Duino Castle on the Adriatic Sea and completed in a final bout of feverish inspiration in 1922, the ten elegies survey the mysteries of consciousness, whether human or animal, earthy or divine. Poet and translator Alfred Corn brings us closer to Rilke's meaning that ever before and illuminates the elegies' celebration of life and love. Also included are a critical introduction exploring the nuances of the translation, several thematically linked lyrics, and two of the "Letters to a Young Poet" to complete the volume. Paperback144 pagesText in German and EnglishW.W. Norton and Company, 2021Originally published in 19235.5 x 0.5 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9781324005407Poetry

Duino Elegies: A New and Complete Translation

By Georg TraklTranslated by James Reidel Georg Trakl’s poetry has been praised by many, including Rainer Maria Rilke and Ludwig Wittgenstein, who wrote that while he did not truly understand Trakl’s poems, they did have the tone of a ‘truly ingenious person’. Collected Poems gathers Trakl’s early, middle and late work, ranging widely—from his haunting prose pieces to his darkly beautiful poems documenting the first bloody weeks of the First World War on the Eastern Front. In a refreshing contrast to previous translations of Trakl, James Reidel is mindful of how the poet himself wished to be read, emphasizing the order and content of the verses to achieve a musical effect. This volume is further enriched by Reidel’s research into the historicity of the poet’s language and his extensive annotation, making this the most comprehensive collection of Trakl’s poetry in English.Paperback462 pagesSeagull Books, 20195 x 8 x 1.25 inchesISBN 9780857427069Poetry

Collected Poems: Georg Trakl

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by M.D. Herter Norton One of the literary masterpieces of the century, this translation is now presented with facing-page German. To Rilke himself the Sonnets to Orpheus were "perhaps the most mysterious in the way they came up and entrusted themselves to me, the most enigmatic dictation I have ever held through and achieved; the whole first part was written down in a single breathless act of obedience, between the 2nd and 5th of February, without one word being doubtful or having to be changed." With facing-page German. Paperback162 pagesText in English and German W.W. Norton, 2006Originally published in 19235.3 x 0.4 x 7.7 inchesISBN 9780393328851Poetry

Sonnets to Orpheus

Original Price: $25.00 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Wassily KandinskyTranslated by Elizabeth R. Napier“I remember buying a copy of Sounds when it was first published in English, and the thrill of discovering this work, page by page. Kandinsky’s synthesis of abstraction and representation, of sound and meaning, remains an exciting challenge for artists and poets today. Sounds is unlike any other book. It belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in abstract art, poetry, and the unpredictable cavorting of the two.”—John Yau, author of Bijoux in the Dark“Possibly the most beautiful, innovative, and influential artist’s book of the twentieth century. A landmark that synthesizes Kandinsky’s pioneering abstractions with his radical sound poems and experimental typography.”—Starr Figura, The Museum of Modern Art, New YorkA dazzling yet little-known artist’s book that distills the painter’s seminal interests in abstraction and the unity of the artsWassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) was a Russian pioneer of abstract painting whose work has influenced generations of artists. His Sounds (Klänge) of 1912 is one of the earliest, most beautiful examples of a 20th-century artist’s book. Its “sound poems” are alternately narrative and expressive, witty and simple in form. They treat questions of space, color, physical design, and the act of seeing in a world that offers multiple and often contradictory possibilities. The woodcut illustrations that accompany the poems range from representational designs to abstract vignettes. In its fusion of image and word, Sounds epitomizes the artist’s move toward abstraction and his aspiration to a synthesis of the arts. This updated edition of Sounds includes all of the book’s poems in English and German and its woodcuts, twelve of which appear in color for greater fidelity to the original. The translator’s introduction offers close formal examination of the poems and situates Sounds in the context of Kandinsky’s oeuvre. Although it was prized by prominent 20th-century artists, Sounds is one of the least known of Kandinsky’s major writings, and this remains the most authoritative English version.Paperback152 pagesYale University Press, 2019Originally published in 19137.4 x 0.3 x 8.2 inchesISBN 9780300238495Artist Monographs, Poetry, Printmaking, Woodcuts

Sounds

By Marie MadeleineEdited by Ronald K. SiegelTranslated by Eric A. ByeMarie-Madeleine was a German Jew, lesbian poet and novelist whose eroticism and love for morphine was revealed in many of her shocking, sensational, and bestselling books of the early twentieth century. Born Gertrud Günther, and starting at age 15 she wrote over 46 books until 1932 when Nazis condemned her work as degenerate. In 1943 she entered a sanatorium for morphine addiction where she died a mysterious death while under the care of Nazis doctors.Priestess of Morphine: The Lost Writings of Marie-Madeleine contains many of this fascinating woman's works, translated for the first time into English, and also contains Stephen J. Gertz's Foreword explaining why Marie-Madeleine has become a rediscovered heroine of lesbian and drug literature. Fascinating images from Marie-Madeleine's lost literature and career supplement this volume.Paperback360 pagesProcess, 20167 x 1 x 9 inchesISBN 9781934170601Women’s Studies, Poetry

Priestess of Morphine: The Lost Writings of Marie-Madeleine in the Time of Nazis

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by Ulrich Baer “Even though each of these letters of condolence is personalized with intimate detail, together they hammer home Rilke’s remarkable truth about the death of another: that the pain of it can force us into a ‘deeper . . . level of life’ and render us more ‘vibrant.’ Here we have a great poet’s reflections on our greatest mystery.”—Billy Collins“A treasure . . . The solace Rilke offers is uncommon, uplifting and necessary.”––The Guardian“As we live our lives, it is possible to feel not sadness or melancholy but a rush of power as the life of others passes into us. This rhapsodic volume teaches us that death is not a negation but a deepening experience in the onslaught of existence. What a wise and victorious book!”—Henri Cole Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke’s voluminous, never-before-translated letters to bereaved friends and acquaintances, The Dark Interval is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death’s place in our lives. Following the format of Letters to a Young Poet, this book arranges Rilke’s letters into an uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of the great author’s thoughts on death and dying, as well as his sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence.Presented with care and authority by master translator Ulrich Baer, The Dark Interval is a literary treasure, an indispensable resource for anyone searching for solace, comfort, and meaning in a time of grief. Hardcover128 pagesModern Library, 20185 x 0.6 x 7.6 inchesISBN 9780525509844Letters, Correspondence

The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation

By Bertolt BrechtTranslated by David Constantine and Tom KuhnForeword by Barbara Brecht-Schall “Not a title that would immediately spring to mind in relation to Brecht but, as these translations by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn show, Germany's most innovative dramatist was also a gifted lyrical poet, full of passion and insight...”—Belfast Telegraph “What also surprises is the tenderness [Brecht] could convey...this book shows that there were many sides to him.”—The Herald "These deeply personal poems reveal that "[Brecht's] best love poems match the provocations of his drama"—William Giraldi, New RepublicIn Love Poems, the first volume in a monumental undertaking by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn to translate Bertolt Brecht's poetic legacy into English, the author of The Threepenny Opera emerges not just as one of the most famous playwrights of the twentieth century but also as a fiercely creative twentieth-century poet. With a personal introduction by Brecht's own daughter, Barbara Brecht-Schall, Love Poems features all-new translations of 78 of Brecht's most famous and personal works, composed in both love and grief, including "Remembering Marie A.," "The Song of Surbaya-Johnny," "The actress in exile," "Spring," "The Seventh Psalm," and "Send me a leaf," which was featured in The New Yorker. Paperback144 pagesLiveright Publishing, 20155.5 x 0.4 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9781631491115Poetry

Love Poems

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by J.B. Leishman Possibility of Being is a selection of poems by one of the most moving and original writers of this century, Rainer Maria Rilke (1857-l926). The title (taken from one of the Sonnets to Orpheus, ''Ibis is the Creature") reflects the central concern of both Rilke's life and art: the achievement of "being,” which this most spiritual yet least doctrinaire of modern German poets defined as "the experiencing of the completest possible inner intensity.'' The eighty-four poems included in this small volume will serve as a sound and inviting introduction to Rilke's strategies in the pursuit of "being." And just as the unicorn in "This Is the Creature" has an eternal "possibility of being" but only becomes visible in the mirror held by a virgin, so can our own possibilities become manifest in the mirror held by the sensitive artist. The poems are chosen from The Book of Hours (1899-1903), The Book of Images (1902 and 1906), New Poems (1907 and 1908), Requiem (1909), Duino Elegies (1923), Sonnets to Orpheus (1923), and the posthumous Poems 1906-26. This selection was made by Professor Theodore Ziolkowski of Princeton University, who drew from the various New Directions volumes of Rilke's work translated by J. B. Leishman. Paperback127 pagesNew Directions; Reprint Edition, 19775.3 x 0.4 x 8 inchesISBN 9780811206518Poetry

Possibility of Being: A Selection of Poems

By Irene Gammel "Irene Gammel's Baroness Elsa mounts an enthusiastic case for her as one of the great unsung modernists."—Village Voice"The Baroness could not have asked for a more thoughtful and engaged monument than Gammel's book."—The New York Times Book Review Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927) is considered by many to be the first American dadaist as well as the mother of dada. An innovator in poetic form and an early creator of junk sculpture, "the Baroness" was best known for her sexually charged, often controversial performances. Some thought her merely crazed, others thought her a genius. The editor Margaret Anderson called her "perhaps the only figure of our generation who deserves the epithet extraordinary." Yet despite her great notoriety and influence, until recently her story and work have been little known outside the circle of modernist scholars. In Baroness Elsa, Irene Gammel traces the extraordinary life and work of this daring woman, viewing her in the context of female dada and the historical battles fought by women in the early twentieth century. Striding through the streets of Berlin, Munich, New York, and Paris wearing such adornments as a tomato-soup can bra, teaspoon earrings, and black lipstick, the Baroness erased the boundaries between life and art, between the everyday and the outrageous, between the creative and the dangerous. Her art objects were precursors to dada objects of the teens and twenties, her sound and visual poetry were far more daring than those of the male modernists of her time, and her performances prefigured feminist body art and performance art by nearly half a century. Paperback562 pagesThe MIT Press, 20037 x 1.3 x 9 inchesISBN 9780262572156Dada

Baroness Elsa: Gender, Dada, and Everyday Modernity

By Georg TraklTranslated by James ReidelBook two of Our Trakl “Sebastian Dreaming is a dark and enveloping book filled with familiar expressionist energies and barraging pastoral haunts. The text is a mere ninety-two pages long, entirely English, entirely exquisite and damning, both still and swirling: a presence of right and wrong, good and evil, complacent and anxious from start to finish. . . . Slowly ascending and descending through the book ultimately results in a challenge worth taking for the breathtaking moments of beauty and collapse that fill a world of dreams and nightmares to be valued equally.”—Queen Mobs Tea House"Sebastian Dreaming is a book of longing and nostalgia. Here we are today, nostalgic as a society for conflict, because we have forgotten the despair it works over those who bear witness. Young Georg Trakl and his poem-dreams are necessary reminders that this nostalgia—maybe all nostalgia—is misplaced, sometimes tragically so."—AsymptoteThe second book in Seagull’s ambitious series of Georg Trakl’s works, Sebastian Dreaming was the second, and final, collection prepared for publication by Trakl himself. Published after his death, it was perhaps even tied to it: forced into a military hospital by the psychological trauma of his World War I experiences, the Austrian poet requested that his publisher send him proofs of the book. He waited a week, and then overdosed on cocaine.A century later, the book appears for the first time in English. While a number of its poems have been included in other collections, translator James Reidel argues that this particular book deserves to stand on its own and be read as one piece, as Trakl intended. Only by doing this can we begin to see Trakl in his proper time and place, as an early modern poet whose words nonetheless continue to exert a powerful hold on us while we make our way through a new, uncharted century. Hardcover72 pagesSeagull Books, 2016Originally published in 19155 x 0.6 x 8.5 inchesISBN 9780857423313Poetry

Sebastian Dreaming

This title is on backorder.Edited by Neue Galerie Deputy Director Scott Gutterman “The intertwining of the visual and the literary is the underlying basis for this provocative and thoughtful anthology . . . What is undeniable is the pleasure in slowly sifting through Gutterman’s choices . . . Gutterman has been brooding, he says, on the associations between poetry and the visual arts for 30 years, and his choice is both intriguing and captivating. It makes us look more intensely, feel — and think.”—Art Quarterly“This book would make a charming gift for a literary sort with an eye for art, or vice versa. Art ranges from Vermeer to Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko and Larry Rivers. The poets flow from Shakespeare to William Carlos Williams and Rainer Maria Rilke.”—StarTribune The world’s great poets interpret the world’s great art in this exquisite book that investigates the connection between art and words, deepening our understanding of both.The poet and the artist share a special kind of vision—an ability to see and penetrate the very essence of their subjects. This volume features poems by writers who turned to paintings for their inspiration, as well as paintings by artists who based their works on poems. Stretching across centuries and styles, this collection includes Rossetti’s haunting sonnet based on Botticelli’s "Primavera"; Wallace Stevens’s “The Man with the Blue Guitar,” a masterful meditation on an iconic painting by Picasso; William Carlos Williams’s joyous interpretations of scenes by Breughel; and Adrienne Rich lending a compassionate voice to the subject of Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s "The Mourning Chair". These and other pairings appear as elegant texts facing full page, glowing illustrations of the paintings. An introduction to some of the greatest poets and painters in history, this remarkable book makes a perfect gift, offering compelling insights into the worlds of art and literature, and the relationship between the two. Hardcover144 pages | 60 color illustrationsPrestel, 20158.6 x 0.8 x 10.9 inchesISBN 9783791354774Poetry, Art

Sunlight on the River: Poems About Paintings, Paintings About Poems

By Kurt TucholskyTranslated by Cindy Opitz "Rheinsberg is at once a delightful and a deeply disquieting story."—Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Hester Among the Ruins and The Scenic Route "A wonderful and charming love story, finally rediscovered and brought to America"—Claudia Dreifus, Columbia University, New York One summer before World War I, a young couple escapes on a romantic weekend getaway to the small German town of Rheinsberg, north of Berlin, in the midst of a rural landscape filled with country houses and castles, cobble-stone streets, lush forests, and dreamy lakes. The story of Wolfie and Claire, told with a fresh, new style of ironic humor, became Kurt Tucholsky’s first literary success and the blueprint for love for an entire generation. Kurt Tucholsky was a brilliant satirist, poet, storyteller, lyricist, pacifist, and Democrat; a fighter, lady’s man, one of the most famous journalists in Weimar Germany, and an early warner against the Nazis. Erich Kaestner called him a "small, fat Berliner," who "wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter". When Tucholsky began to write, he had five voices—in the end, he had none. His books were burned and banned by the Nazis, who drove him out of his country. But he is not forgotten. Rheinsberg is at once a delightful and a deeply disquieting story. The lovers, Claire and Wolfie—a silly but harmless pair—escape the confines of Berlin for a romantic romp in the countryside. As their brief interlude nears its end, already consigned to memory, there comes with it an end to innocence, to frivolity. It was 1912; Kurt Tucholsky’s prescience was uncanny: the holiday is over and soon we will go to war. Hardcover98 pagesBerlinica Press, 2014Originally Published in 19125 x 0.5 x 8 inchesISBN 9781935902256Romantic Fiction, Poetry

Rheinsberg: A Storybook for Lovers

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Marie Macy “These poems of spiritual yearning and discovery composed by the young Rilke one hundred years ago feel very fresh and moving in the beautifully transparent, supple versions of Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. With their psalm-like directness and emotional urgency, they nourish and quicken the life of the spirit.”—Chana Bloch, translator of The Song of SongsWhile visiting Russia in his twenties, Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, was moved by a spirituality he encountered there. Inspired, Rilke returned to Germany and put down on paper what he felt were spontaneously received prayers. Rilke's Book of Hours is the invigorating vision of spiritual practice for the secular world, and a work that seems remarkably prescient today, one hundred years after it was written.Rilke's Book of Hours shares with the reader a new kind of intimacy with God, or the divine—a reciprocal relationship between the divine and the ordinary in which God needs us as much as we need God. Rilke influenced generations of writers with his Letters to a Young Poet, and now Rilke's Book of Hours tells us that our role in the world is to love it and thereby love God into being. These fresh translations rendered by Joanna Macy, a mystic and spiritual teacher, and Anita Barrows, a skilled poet, capture Rilke's spirit as no one has done before.Paperback257 pages Penguin Press, 2005Originally published in 19055.1 x 0.7 x 8 inchesISBN 9781594481567 Poetry

Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Edited by Erika A. Metzger and Michael M. MetzgerContributors: Alan F. Keele, Erika and Michael Metzger, and George C. Schoolfield"The ten essays by eminent Rilke scholars succeed in their intent to move toward a new image of Rilke."—German Quarterly "This study is a wonderful, animated text, a lovely tribute to the poet's great humanity, and it should be included in any study of Rilke."—Colloquia Germanica"The cosmopolitan solitary is shown against the background of a developing modernistic culture, to which (Rilke) substantially contributed. The authors show profound insight into the many problems raised ... by work which combines the ineffable with the physical."—Modern Language StudiesRainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is the best-known German poet of his generation and is widely appreciated today by readers in Europe, the United States, and world-wide. Because of the inventiveness and musicality of his poetic language and the visionary intuition of his thinking, Rilke's influence extends well beyond poetry to include religion, philosophy, the social sciences, and the arts. His works have been widely translated into English, and new renderings of such poem cycles as "Duino Elegies" and "The Sonnets to Orpheus" appear frequently. Critics regard Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge as a seminal modern novel. The Companion to Rilke provides essential, up-to-date essays by top Rilke scholars on a wide range of the major aspects of Rilke's life and works. The volume follows the chronology of Rilke's career, emphasizing those works that have not been met with the greatest critical interest. Among the topics covered are: Rilke's life and thought; the writings before 1902; Das Stunden-Buch and Das Buch der Bilder; the Neue Gedichte, The Cornet and other brief narratives; Malte Laurids Brigge; The Duino Elegies; The Sonnets to Orpheus; Rilke as a poet in French; Rilke and the visual arts.Paperback323 pagesBOYE6, 20046 x 0.7 x 9 inchesISBN 9781571133021Literary Criticism

A Companion to the Works of Rainer Maria Rilke

By Robert WalserTranslated by Christopher Middleton "The poems also give us Walser’s manner in concentrated miniature, and it could be that rhyme—joining the disparate, cultivating the arbitrary - is at the heart of what he is doing. They are odd, whimsical, insouciant things, exhilarating in their ability to be what they are."—The Times Literary Supplement"The magnificently humble. The enormously small. The meaningfully ridiculous. Robert Walser’s work often reads like a dazzling answer to the question, How immense can modesty be?"—Rivka Galchen, Harper’s MagazineIn a small, exquisite clothbound format resembling the early Swiss and German editions of Walser’s work, Thirty Poems collects famed translator Christopher Middleton’s favorite poems from the more than five hundred Walser wrote. The illustrations range from an early poem in perfect copperplate handwriting, to one from a 1927 Czech-German newspaper, to a microscript.Hardcover64 pagesNew Directions, 20125.3 x 0.4 x 7.3 inchesISBN 9780811220019Poetry

Thirty Poems

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated by John J. L. MoodAn anthology of Rilke's strongest poetry and prose for both aficionados and new readers.Here is a mini-anthology of poetry and prose for both aficionados and those readers discovering Rainer Maria Rilke for the first time. John J. L. Mood has assembled a collection of Rilke's strongest work, presenting commentary along with the selections. Mood links into an essay passages from letters that show Rilke's profound understanding of men and women and his ardent spirituality, rooted in the senses.Combining passion and sensitivity, the poems on love presented here are often not only sensual but sexual as well. Others pursue perennial themes in his work—death and life, growth and transformation. The book concludes with Rilke's reflections on wisdom and openness to experience, on grasping what is most difficult and turning what is most alien into that which we can most trust. Paperback128 pagesW.W. Norton & Co., 19945.4 x 0.5 x 8 inchesISBN 9780393310986 Poetry, Prose

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated from the German by Vita Sackville-West & Edward Sackville-WestIntroduction by Lesley Chamberlain The first-ever English translation of Rilke’s landmark poetry cycle, by Vita and Edward Sackville-West—reissued for the first time in 90 years In 1931, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press published a small run of a beautiful edition of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies, in English translation by the writers Vita and Edward Sackville-West. This marked the English debut of Rilke’s masterpiece, which would eventually be rendered in English over 20 times, influencing countless poets, musicians and artists across the English-speaking world. Published for the first time in 90 years, the Sackville-Wests’ translation is both a fascinating historical document and a magnificent blank-verse rendering of Rilke’s poetry cycle. Featuring a new introduction from critic Lesley Chamberlain, this reissue casts one of European literature’s great masterpieces in fresh light. Paperback109 pagesPushkin Press, 2025Originally published in 19235.11 x 0.37 x 7.77 inchesISBN 9781782277804Poetry

Duino Elegies [Paperback]

Herausgegeben von Herbert Schnierle-Lutz »Und wo bleibt das Positive?« wurde Erich Kästner immer wieder gefragt, wenn er seine zeitkritischen Gedichte und Kolumnen veröffentlichte. »Ja, weiß der Teufel, wo das bleibt«, antwortete er.Es ist nicht einfach in dieser Welt, Literatur zu schreiben, die das Leben ohne Wenn und Aber bejaht; das viele, das menschlich und gesellschaftlich im argen liegt, beansprucht die Aufmerksamkeit der Schriftsteller, die das Leben möglichst wirklichkeitsnah und ungeschönt darstellen wollen. Und außerdem ist das Positive, wenn es ab und zu doch zum Zuge kommt, »kein guter Stoff für Dichter«, wie der Schriftsteller Robert Walser einmal feststellte. Dennoch brauchen wir zuweilen auch Nachrichten vom Glück, wollen von positiven Erfahrungen und Erlebnissen lesen. Und manchmal tun uns die Dichter, allen Bedenken zum Trotz, den Gefallen. Hymnen und Lobpreisungen, die uns Mut machen, erblicken dann das Licht der Welt. Gedichte von Franz von Assisi bis Ingeborg Bachmann, von Goethe, Eichendorff und Mörike bis Wolf Biermann und Sarah Kirsch finden sich in diesem Band versammelt. Hardcover89 pages | 4 illustrations in colorText in German Insel Verlag GmbH, 20214.6 x 0.47 x 7.3 inchesISBN 9783458192794Poetry

Es kommt ein neuer Tag, eine neue Nacht

By Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTranslated by John Kent A fresh translation of the poetry of German Romantic and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. “Germany’s greatest man of letters… and the last true polymath to walk the earth” — George Eliot Here, in this selection of his poetry, is representation of Goethe’s life from childhood to old age: full of travel, romantic fixations, curiosity, nostalgia, deep thought, and above all, writing. Goethe is undoubtedly Germany’s greatest poet, as Shakespeare is England’s. This fresh translation offers the reader an introduction to Goethe’s genius. And what a genius! Novelist, dramatist, philosopher and above all poet; a scientist with deep interests in Nature, in particular the human body, forestry, geology, botany and light; a courtier and in later life considered a sage, he was also a very frequent letter writer, no mean artist, and a man who was able throughout his life to renew and rejuvenate himself creatively, working out many of his life’s problems through his writings. For English speakers he is probably best known as the author of Faust, a vast dramatic work mainly in verse which occupied him on and off throughout his long life, as well as The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel of youthful despair which became the sacred text of the Romantic movement. This volume brings together his very personal lyric poetry, hewing as close to the original form, content, and rhyme schemes as possible in English. Paperback256 pagesPushkin Press Classics, 20265.1 x 7.8 inchesISBN 9781805333401Poetry, German Authors

The Wanderer's Song: Essential Poems

von Rainer Maria RilkeHerausgegeben von Rainer Stamm Seit seiner Begegnung mit Paula Becker, Clara Westhoff und den Malern der Künstlerkolonie in Worpswede setzt Rainer Maria Rilke sich immer wieder intensiv mit Malerei auseinander. Auf seinen Reisen hält er fortan seine Begegnungen mit Kunstwerken aus allen Epochen in kongenialen Bildbetrachtungen fest und berichtet in Tagebuchaufzeichnungen und Briefen von seinen Entdeckungen und Seherlebnissen. Erstmals werden in diesem Band Rilkes faszinierende Bildbeschreibungen den Werken von Rembrandt, El Greco, Goya, Böcklin, van Gogh, Picasso u. a. gegenübergestellt, die Rilke auf seinen Reisen gesehen und in seine präzise Sprache übersetzt hat. Hardcover92 pagesText in GermanInsel Verlag, 20254.8 x 0.43 x 7.24 inchesISBN 9783458645047Books in German, Rainer Maria Rilke

»Im ersten Augenblick«

By Rainer Maria RilkeTranslated from the German by Edward Snow “The most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke’s contemporary translators.” —Michael Dirda, Washington Post A gorgeous new translation of one of the strongest inaugural works in twentieth century poetry. Long hailed as a masterwork of modern German literature, The Book of Hours (1905) marks the origin of Rainer Maria Rilke’s distinctive voice and vision—where clarity of diction meets unexpected imagery and first-person poetry discovers its full lyric possibility. In these audacious poems, a devout but candid speaker addresses an ultimately unknowable deity, passing through love, fear, guilt, anger, bewilderment, loneliness, tenderness, and exaltation in his search for meaning. In this dual-language edition, Edward Snow, “the most trustworthy and exhilarating of Rilke’s contemporary translators” (Michael Dirda, Washington Post), makes Rilke’s achievement accessible as never before in English. Snow retains a striking fidelity to the German text while also conveying the captivating psychological presence that animates Rilke’s best poems. Paperback368 pagesText in German and EnglishW.W. Norton, 2026Originally published in 19055.5 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9781324123460Poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke

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