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Rilke: Between Roots. Selected Poems Rendered from the German by Rika Lesser
The description for this book, Between Roots. Selected Poems Rendered from the German by Rika Lesser, will be forthcoming.
- GenresPoetry
82 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
3 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Rainer Maria Rilke
1,851 books7,046 followersA mystic lyricism and precise imagery often marked verse of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose collections profoundly influenced 20th-century German literature and include
The Book of Hours
(1905) and
The Duino Elegies
(1923).
People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.
His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.
His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge .
He also wrote more than four hundred poems in French, dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland, his homeland of choice.
People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.
His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.
His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge .
He also wrote more than four hundred poems in French, dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland, his homeland of choice.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 21, 2022
Only one who has already raised
the lyre, plucked its strings among
the shades as well, may surmising restore
the infinite praise.
Only one who has eaten of the poppy
with the dead, of their own
flower, will not lose even the most
imperceptible tone.
Even if the reflection in the pool
often swims before us, blurred:
Know the image.
Only in the Double Realm
will the voices become endless,
mild, liberal.
* * *
Others hold the wine, others hold the oils
in the hollowed-out vaults their walls described.
I, as a smaller measure, and the slenderest, hollow
myself for another need, for the sake of plummeting tears.
Wine grows richer, and oil clearer in the jug.
What happens to tears? - They made me heavy,
blinder, and iridescent at the edge,
made me brittle finally, and empty.
* * *
Where for this Inside is there
an Outside? Upon what wound
does one lay such a dressing?
What heavens are reflected there
in the inland lake of these open roses,
these heedless ones, look:
How loose they lie, tempting fate,
as if no trembling hand
could ever spill them.
They can scarcely contain
themselves; many let themselves
be filled to the brim and over
flow with inner space
into days that always
fuller and fuller close,
until the whole summer becomes
a room, a room in a dream.
* * *
Night: into depth dissolved,
your face upon my face.
You, my astonished sight's greatest
preponderance.
Night: in my glance trembling,
yet in yourself so firm;
inexhaustible creation, enduring
over residual earth;
full of young nebulas
whose rims inflight
throw fire into the soundless
adventure of the void:
by your mere being, O Transcendence,
how small I seem - ;
yet, one with the dusky earth,
I dare, within you, to be.
* * *
Come, you last thing I recognize,
unendurable pain in the body's web:
Just as I burned in spirit, see, I burn
in you; the wood has long resisted
joining its voice to your flame;
but now I feed you and burn in you.
My gentleness of earth, in your rage,
becomes a rage of Hell, not of here.
Planless, wholly pure, free of future,
I mounted pain's tortuous pyre,
sure of never buying a Becoming
with this heart, where all resource was mute.
Am I still unrecognizable; what burns?
I shall not drag memories inside.
O living, Living: To be outside.
And I in flames. No one who knows me.
(Renunciation. This is not what sickness once was
in childhood. Postponement. Pretext for
growing. Everything called, admonishing.
Do not confuse this with what amazed you long ago.)
the lyre, plucked its strings among
the shades as well, may surmising restore
the infinite praise.
Only one who has eaten of the poppy
with the dead, of their own
flower, will not lose even the most
imperceptible tone.
Even if the reflection in the pool
often swims before us, blurred:
Know the image.
Only in the Double Realm
will the voices become endless,
mild, liberal.
- The Sonnets to Orpheus: I, 9, pg. 7
* * *
Others hold the wine, others hold the oils
in the hollowed-out vaults their walls described.
I, as a smaller measure, and the slenderest, hollow
myself for another need, for the sake of plummeting tears.
Wine grows richer, and oil clearer in the jug.
What happens to tears? - They made me heavy,
blinder, and iridescent at the edge,
made me brittle finally, and empty.
- Lachrymatory, pg. 19
* * *
Where for this Inside is there
an Outside? Upon what wound
does one lay such a dressing?
What heavens are reflected there
in the inland lake of these open roses,
these heedless ones, look:
How loose they lie, tempting fate,
as if no trembling hand
could ever spill them.
They can scarcely contain
themselves; many let themselves
be filled to the brim and over
flow with inner space
into days that always
fuller and fuller close,
until the whole summer becomes
a room, a room in a dream.
- Inside the Rose, pg. 24
* * *
Night: into depth dissolved,
your face upon my face.
You, my astonished sight's greatest
preponderance.
Night: in my glance trembling,
yet in yourself so firm;
inexhaustible creation, enduring
over residual earth;
full of young nebulas
whose rims inflight
throw fire into the soundless
adventure of the void:
by your mere being, O Transcendence,
how small I seem - ;
yet, one with the dusky earth,
I dare, within you, to be.
- pg. 34
* * *
Come, you last thing I recognize,
unendurable pain in the body's web:
Just as I burned in spirit, see, I burn
in you; the wood has long resisted
joining its voice to your flame;
but now I feed you and burn in you.
My gentleness of earth, in your rage,
becomes a rage of Hell, not of here.
Planless, wholly pure, free of future,
I mounted pain's tortuous pyre,
sure of never buying a Becoming
with this heart, where all resource was mute.
Am I still unrecognizable; what burns?
I shall not drag memories inside.
O living, Living: To be outside.
And I in flames. No one who knows me.
(Renunciation. This is not what sickness once was
in childhood. Postponement. Pretext for
growing. Everything called, admonishing.
Do not confuse this with what amazed you long ago.)
- pg. 59
November 11, 2016
Among Rilke’s remarkable oeuvre, this collection is one of the few that carries my favorite poem of his, “Christ’s Journey to Hell.” In this slender volume, Rika Lesser provides solid translations. They capture the nuance and musical flow of Rilke’s style, and Lesser offers her own artistic flourishes to complement Rilke’s vision, depth, and range.
February 18, 2009
Rika Lesser's translation of Rilke's poetry is the best I have come across, probably because she is a poet herself.
February 6, 2017
Not a reflection on the poet, but of the reader. I'm not ready to access these poems.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews