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Title: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Anita Barrows, Joanna R. Macy ISBN: 1-57322-585-1 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (18 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: "Be still and know."
Comment: "My branches/ rest in deep silence," Rilke writes in this collection, "stirred only by the wind" (I, 3). I arrived at this translation of Rilke through Joanna Macy's recent memoir, WIDENING CIRCLES (2000), the title of which Macy took from a Rilke poem collected here: "I live my life in widening circles/ that reach out across the world./ I may not ever complete the last one,/ but I give myself to it" (I, 2). I am not a Rilke scholar, nor am I qualified to comment on the accuracy of this translation, but for me, Macy and Barrows succeed in capturing the spiritual intimacy of Rilke's verse.
Rilke (1875-1926) wrote his BOOK OF HOURS between the years 1899-1903, inspired by the spirituality he encountered while visiting Russia. He tells us things of the world have souls, giving us an opportunity for dialogue. It is possible to read this collection both as "cycle of love poems," and as "intensely inward conversations with God" (p. 24). Rilke portrays God "not with lapis or gold, but with colors made of apple bark" (I, 60). He observes that God moves quietly through our lives: "Of all who move through the quiet houses,/ you are the quietest" (I, 45). God runs "like a herd of luminous deer/ and I am dark," Rilke writes, "I am a forest" (I, 45).
"Things" teach us "to fall,/ patiently to trust our heaviness./ Even a bird has to do that/ before he can fly" (II, 16). "Now you must go out into your heart," Rilke writes in another poem, "as onto a vast plain" (II, 2). These are poems that will quietly touch your soul; they will leave you wanting to spend more than a few HOURS with Rilke. Another recommended favorite is Mitchell's SELECTED POETRY OF RAINER MARIA RILKE (1989).
G. Merritt
Rating: 5
Summary: A primer in love, divine and human
Comment: I hadn't read Rilke in years. And then, wonderfully, I pulled this hitherto unopened translation off my shelves, and rediscovered what so moved me in his poetry when I was a young man. Rilke has the true poet's gift of seeing more deeply into the fabric of existence than most of us, and the ability to invite us to look a bit more closely. He hints, insinuates, teases, and almost always illuminates.
I particularly love this book because Rilke, in keeping with the tradition of love mysticism, wants to suggest that there's no fundamental difference between the intense yearning for another person and the intense yearning for God. As the poet/narrator tells a young monk struggling with passions of the flesh, "now, like a whispering in dark streets/rumors of God run through your dark blood." Love of God and love of humans are both erotic inasmuch as they involve the entire person, mind, soul, and body. To long for the beloved is necessarily a sensual experience. Moreover, reminiscent of the great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, Rilke holds that God erotically yearns for us as much as we yearn for God. One of my favorite poems in the book, "Was wirst du tun, Gott, wenn ich sterbe?", hauntingly worries about the devastatinig effect the poet/narrator's death will have upon God the Lover:
What will you do, God, when I die?
I am your pitcher (when I shatter?)
I am your drink (when I go bitter?)
I, your garment; I, your craft.
Without me what reason have you?
...What will you do, God? I am afraid.
Rating: 5
Summary: Rilke, Love Poems to God
Comment: Bought this on a whim and am so thankful I did! A beautiful book, beautifully translated; could have been written a thousand years ago or yesterday. Treat yourself to a spiritual boost!
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Title: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, M.D. Herter Norton ISBN: 0393310396 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2004 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell ISBN: 0679722017 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 March, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Book of Images by Rainer Maria Rilke, Edward Snow, Edward A. Snow ISBN: 086547477X Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1994 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Stories of God by Rainer Maria Rilke ISBN: 0393308820 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 April, 1992 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations by Rainer Maria Rilke, John J.L. Mood, John J. L. Mood ISBN: 0393310981 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2004 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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