The Poetry of Rilke [Paperback]

For the past twenty-five years, North Point Press has been working with Edward Snow, Rilke's best contemporary translator (Brian Phillips,The New Republic), to bring into English Rilke's major poetic works.The Poetry of Rilkethe single most comprehensive volume of Rilke's German poetry ever to be published in Englishis the culmination of this effort. With more than two hundred and fifty selected poems by Rilke, including complete translations of theSonnets to Orpheusand theDuino Elegies,The Poetry of Rilkespans the arc of Rilke's work, from the breakthrough poems ofThe Book of Hoursto the visionary masterpieces written only weeks before his death. This landmark bilingual edition also contains all of Snow's commentaries on Rilke, as well as an important new introduction by the award-winning poet Adam Zagajewski.The Poetry of Rilkewill stand as the authoritative single-volume translation of Rilke into English for years to come.

Rainer Maria Rilkewas born in Prague in 1875 and traveled throughout Europe for much of his adult life, returning frequently to Paris. His last years were spent in Switzerland, where he completed his two poetic masterworks, theDuino Elegiesand theSonnets to Orpheus. He died of leukemia in December 1926.

Edward Snowis a professor of English at Rice University. He is the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for his Rilke translations and has twice received the Academy of American Poets' Harold Morton Landon Translation Award.

Edward Snow is doing important work. Robert Lowell once wrote that it was hard to imagine Rilke first written in English, that the poems were sealed in German. Snow is unsealing them. Robert Phillips, Houston Chronicle

[This] translation of theElegiesis the finest that I have ever read . . . Snow has gradually been building a reputation as Rilke's best contemporary translator in Engli