A collection of haunting, mystical poems of the night by the great Rainer Maria Rilke, appearing together for the first time in English
In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented his friend Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems meticulously inscribed in his own hand and bearing the title Poems to Night. This evocative sequence of poems, which echoes some of the great themes of German romanticism, is now thought to represent one of the key stages in the creative breakthrough and spiritual evolution of the pre-eminent European poet of the twentieth century.
This collection brings all the poems together in English for the first time and is enhanced by a rich selection of further poems Rilke dedicated to night at various stages of his life. The Poems to Night and the background to them are illuminated by the translator’s insightful introduction.
About the author
Will Stone, born 1966, is a poet, essayist and literary translator. His first poetry collection Glaciation (Salt, 2007), won the international Glen Dimplex Award for poetry in 2008. Shearsman Books has re-published his subsequent critically appraised collections. Will’s poetry translations include To the Silenced – Selected Poems of Georg Trakl (Arc, 2005) Emile Verhaeren Poems (Arc, 2013), Georges Rodenbach Poems (Arc, 2017) and Friedrich Hölderlin’s Life Poetry and Madness by Wilhelm Waiblinger (2018). Pushkin Press published his translation of Montaigne by Stefan Zweig in 2015, Messages from a Lost World – Europe on the Brink by Stefan Zweig in 2016 and The Art of the City – Rome, Florence, Venice by Georg Simmel in September 2018. Encounters and Destinies – A Farewell to Europe by Stefan Zweig and Surrender to Night – Collected Poems of Georg Trakl will be published in 2019. Will has contributed poems, translations, essays and reviews to a range of publications including The London Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, Apollo Magazine, the RA Magazine, The White Review, Poetry Review and Agenda.
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