Prayers of a Young Poet - Softcover

Rilke, Rainer Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1612616410 ISBN 13: 9781612616414

Publisher: Paraclete Press, 2015

Synopsis

This volume marks the first translation of these prayer-poems into English. Originally written in 1899, Rilke wrote them upon returning to Germany from his first trip to Russia. His experience of the East shaped him profoundly. He found himself entranced by Orthodox churches and monasteries, above all by the icons that seemed to him like flames glowing in dark spaces. He intended these poems as icons of sorts, gestures that could illumine a way for seekers in the darkness. As Rilke here writes, "I love the dark hours of my being, for they deepen my senses." Translated by Mark S. Burrows.

About this title

About the Authors

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was one of the most important German-language poets and writers of the early 20th century. His other poetry collections include Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus.

Mark S. Burrows is scholar, poet, and teacher, known internationally for his work on theology and spirituality, mysticism and poetics. For more than two decades he taught in several graduate theological schools in the US and Germany. He is also a translator of German poetry and prose into English, and currently lives and teaches in Germany. Recent publications include his widely-celebrated translation of Rilke, Prayers of a Young Poet (Paraclete), and Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart (Hampton Roads).

From the Back Cover

A ground-breaking volume that presents, for the first time in English, these prayer-poems as Rilke intended them"This extraordinary early-draft form of some of Rilke's most famous poems somehow evokes, for me, Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks--it shows the same mix of surety, roughness, genius, and the sense of precipitous creative speed. Rilke's poetry always reminds us what a direct pondering of intimacy and depth might look like. I am most grateful for these muscular translations and Mark Burrows' extended introductory comments, offering entrance to a body of work until now unavailable to English-language readers."
--Jane Hirshfield, poet and translator; author most recently of "Come, Thief: Poems" ""Prayers of a Young Poet" is a hauntingly beautiful book. Mark Burrows' splendid translation renders the passion and the pathos of the anonymous young monk who sings these love songs to the Lord and somehow speaks our hidden desire. In these pages, Rilke dances in the dark to the tune of his own poems, his reluctant partner the elusive God he woos. The effect is irresistible: an invitation to join in the dance no reader can refuse."
--Angela Alaimo O'Donnell, poet and author of "Saint Sinatra & Other Poems" "Rilke's praying monk begins with the time-honored conventions of his religious tradition, then moves beyond them to the dark silences of forest and dream where God waits to be discovered anew. In these startling poems brought to us in Mark Burrows' lucid translation, metaphor gives way to metaphor, as each verbal foray into the divine courts a mystery that can be approached but neither comprehended nor defined."
--Peter S. Hawkins, Professor of Religion and Literature, Yale Divinity School

Edition details

• Publisher: Paraclete Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1612616410
• ISBN 13: 9781612616414
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112