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Fifty Poems

Fifty Poems

by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by Geoffrey Lehmann

$16.00
$16.00
Available as E-Book German Literature Poets & Poetry
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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.

Additional Book Information

Series: NYRB Poets
ISBN: 9781681379944
Pages: 128
Publication Date:

Praise

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

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