A review by elianachow
New Poems: A Revised Bilingual Edition by Rainer Maria Rilke

Very intrigued by what Rilke did here—what the translator describes as “a poetry that would somehow manage to belong to the world of things rather than feelings,” and chiefly inspired by the sculpture art of Rodin, by whom Rilke was deeply inspired. There’s a lot of emphasis in these poems on the physical “mind” of description and mythological storytelling, as opposed to matters of the “heart.” Yet Rilke somehow manages to evoke feelings and attachments despite his effort to remain true to the “objects” he brings to readers’ attention.

Another translator note—“[the poems] deny us subjectivity in order to restore us to the world”—I can also see play out in these poems, but it gets me thinking about what the purpose of poetry is, both formulaically and in the types of meaning it conveys…

I can’t say I enjoyed these poems as much as I had hoped to, considering how I have clung strongly to many of Rilke’s other more well-known works throughout the years, but from a literary standpoint I kind of get it. Maybe the descriptions don’t sit quite so heavily in the original German.