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jasminawithab's review
slow-paced
3.25
imo rilkes best writing is about feelings or people. ik he does a lot of 'thing poetry' but its just not for me so this collection was pretty meh. i really didnt like how rilke talks about women, especially girls, here honestly. it was very gross. im also just not the biggest fan of Snows translation? i looked up a handful of poems from different translators and liked them way more, so maybe ill revisit this in the future but with a different edition
my fav full poems were The Olive Garden, Lament for Antinous, and The Song of the Women to the Poet
my fav full poems were The Olive Garden, Lament for Antinous, and The Song of the Women to the Poet
the beating of your wings leaves me bruised
- The Poet
she was no longer the blond wife
who echoed often in the poets songs
no longer the vast beds scent and island,
and that mans property no longer
she was already loosened like long hair,
and given over like fallen rain
and handed out like a limitless supply
she was already root.
and without warning
the god stopped her and with pain in his voice
spoke the words: he has turned around-
she was puzzled and answered softly: who?
- Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes
for i want then amidst the rubble heaps
finally to hear my own voice again-
which from its first moments was a howling.
- Jeremiah
everything still remembers, still weeps, still hurts-
-The Pavilion
not one of you could grasp the Bithyian boy
(ah had you seized the stream and heaved it off him...)
yes, i pampered him. and to what end? we have
only filled him with heaviness and forever dimmed him.
who then can love? who has the strength? - none as yet.
and so i have inflicted endless pain-.
now on the Nile he is one of the quiescent gods,
and i can scarcely tell which and i cannot get close to him.
and still you would hurl him, you madmen, out to the stars,
to have me constantly demanding: is he that one?
why can't he just be someone dead? he wouldn't mind.
maybe then nothing would've happened to him.
- Lament for Antinous
rachelhelps's review against another edition
3.0
Good poems, with themes ranging from simple/everyday things to epic characters and religious themes
elianachow's review against another edition
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.
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.
yeller's review against another edition
4.0
This is a truly amazing book of poems for me, as someone who spends most of their poetry describing images to convey stories and emotions. Rilke, particularly in the second half, has the ability to write paintings. Due to tiredness, I can't truly explain effectively except to say that the sound and imagery make some of the best poetry I've read in an extremely long time.
Particularly useful in this volume was the notes at the bottom. The only problem with his poems, and the only reason it does not have the full five stars, is because sometimes they are so purposefully abstract all there is is pretty sound and imagery.
Particularly useful in this volume was the notes at the bottom. The only problem with his poems, and the only reason it does not have the full five stars, is because sometimes they are so purposefully abstract all there is is pretty sound and imagery.
caterpillarnotebooks's review against another edition
5.0
new poems are good thanks for coming to my dissertation talk
msand3's review against another edition
5.0
This collection on Goodreads gathers two volumes translated by Snow: New Poems, 1907 and New Poems: The Other Part, 1908, both published in the 1980s. The collection is abridged, so I suggest tracking down each individual volume for the best translation of both complete books. I also recommend the Joseph Cadora translation (also with complete poems from both volumes) for the wonderful footnotes. I will review both Snow volumes individually after I read each one.
New Poems, 1907:
Rilke’s first collection of New Poems, published in 1907, contains what might be called poetic still lifes. Influenced by the sculpture of Rodin, he attempts to infuse the everyday materiality of still objects -- roses, a cathedral, bodies in a morgue, a courtesan, a gazelle, a man in prison, etc. -- with a life that is at once separate from the observer but also inside each of us. The subjects become universal markers to which each reader can relate not in our (or the poet’s) visual connection to the object itself, but in how we are moved by the shared experience as seen through the poet’s eye. And so the “movement” in the still life (i.e, the poetic image) occurs not from without (in the object itself, or in its ekphrastic description), but from within the poet -- and likewise, from within the reader.
Like Buddha in the first poem of the same title, the world of experience is simultaneously something distant, but also hovering and ever-present. He is not “a star,” but “Star” -- the central, guiding force around which all other stars gather. (“O, he is everything,” Rilke writes, not in wonder, but almost as a casual aside, as if intoning, “O, that’s just the air that we breathe…” His presence, like that of the world of experience, is so ever-present as to be a given.)
And it is the poet’s job to remind us of the extraordinary in the ordinary objects around us. As the Angel of one poem reaches out and beckons to us from Eternity, so too does the poet, showing us through his art a world without limits (“With a slight nod he dismisses forever / all that sets limits and obliges”), if only we take the time to silently reflect -- experiencing in our own stillness the rapid and continuous transmutation taking place within.
New Poems: The Other Part, 1908:
Published only one year after the first collection of New Poems, these feel much less intense and personal. Only a handful of poems, including the last one, "Buddha in Glory," gave me the same sublime sense of oneness with the poet as I felt when reading the first volume. Indeed, that final Buddha poem felt like it was meant to be not only a companion verse to the Buddha poems in the first volume, but also the lynchpin of both volumes. Overall, I would only recommend reading this second volume along with (and after) reading the first.
New Poems, 1907:
Rilke’s first collection of New Poems, published in 1907, contains what might be called poetic still lifes. Influenced by the sculpture of Rodin, he attempts to infuse the everyday materiality of still objects -- roses, a cathedral, bodies in a morgue, a courtesan, a gazelle, a man in prison, etc. -- with a life that is at once separate from the observer but also inside each of us. The subjects become universal markers to which each reader can relate not in our (or the poet’s) visual connection to the object itself, but in how we are moved by the shared experience as seen through the poet’s eye. And so the “movement” in the still life (i.e, the poetic image) occurs not from without (in the object itself, or in its ekphrastic description), but from within the poet -- and likewise, from within the reader.
Like Buddha in the first poem of the same title, the world of experience is simultaneously something distant, but also hovering and ever-present. He is not “a star,” but “Star” -- the central, guiding force around which all other stars gather. (“O, he is everything,” Rilke writes, not in wonder, but almost as a casual aside, as if intoning, “O, that’s just the air that we breathe…” His presence, like that of the world of experience, is so ever-present as to be a given.)
And it is the poet’s job to remind us of the extraordinary in the ordinary objects around us. As the Angel of one poem reaches out and beckons to us from Eternity, so too does the poet, showing us through his art a world without limits (“With a slight nod he dismisses forever / all that sets limits and obliges”), if only we take the time to silently reflect -- experiencing in our own stillness the rapid and continuous transmutation taking place within.
New Poems: The Other Part, 1908:
Published only one year after the first collection of New Poems, these feel much less intense and personal. Only a handful of poems, including the last one, "Buddha in Glory," gave me the same sublime sense of oneness with the poet as I felt when reading the first volume. Indeed, that final Buddha poem felt like it was meant to be not only a companion verse to the Buddha poems in the first volume, but also the lynchpin of both volumes. Overall, I would only recommend reading this second volume along with (and after) reading the first.
l2intj's review
challenging
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
3.25
I adore Rilke. I’ve read all of his major works several times, and I was delighted to find a full collection of his New Poems. I was, however, not blown away by this collection. I don’t know if it was the poetry itself or the translation. I really don’t know enough about translating to judge that, but several of the poems just came across as clunky. I know Rilke was doing something a little different with these works as well though…so…who knows. Anyway, it’s not my favorite of his, but there are always gems among his poetry, and that remains true for this book as well. So, at the end of the day, it was worth the read.
silkelfheaven's review
5.0
Breathtaking writing! I urge anyone with a soul to read these poems. I’m sorry I came to the last page and want to read it again and again. Beautiful!
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