The Poetry of Rilke (North Point Press), translated by Edward Snow

Rainer Maria Rilke(1875-1926) wrote some of the most lustrous poetry in German since Goethe, yetspent little time in Germany.Born in Prague like Kafka, he considered Russia hisspiritual homeland, worked as secretary to French sculptor Rodin and died inSwiss exile. A beautifully presented new set of translations places theoriginal German alongside well-considered English translations by Rice University’sEdward Snow. In his introduction, Polish poet Adam Zagajewski puts the poems’words in an intelligent context. Rilke’s thicket of allusions cannot beconfined to any ideology and his words are less concerned with describingappearances than in discovering what things “wanted to say.”