The Inner Sky: Poems, Notes, Dreams [Paperback]

Rainer Maria Rilke (Author), Damion Searls (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 16, 2010

The Inner Sky is a new selection of poems and prose by the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, set with the original text and a facing page translation, and including more than a dozen works that have never before appeared in English. The translations, by the NEA and PEN-award-winning author and translator Damion Searls, are lively, moving, and appealing, and they give a new voice for Rilke in English: mystical but concrete, like Emily Dickinson or Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Searls's selection of texts clusters around a handful of related images and ideas birds and trees, giving and receiving, working and waiting, girlhood and gardens and presents a coherent vision of how we relate to the outer world and inner world of the imagination. Scholars and students of Rilke will benefit from the German and French originals opposite the translations, and two full indices of English and original titles and first lines. An annotated chronology and the translator's afterword complete this rich new volume, a necessary addition to even the most complete Rilke library, and the perfect introduction for those just getting to know this perennial master.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Translating Rilke means entering quite an established literary tradition, one that is not lost on translator Damion Searls. Searls dedicates The Inner Sky to poet Anne Carson and previous Rilke translators and well-known literati Stephen Mitchell and Edward Snow. Winner of PEN and Fulbright awards, Searls endeavors to translate with 'vigor and mysterious simplicity'; his rendering is as unconventional as it is enjoyable. His English, as he describes it in the collection's thoughtful afterword, highlights its Germanic ties to Rilke's 'tongue-twistingly assonant' original language, oftentimes with an unusual twist in the English. No matter their level of familiarity with Rilke, The Inner Sky belongs on the bookshelf of any literature lover, thanks largely to Searls' deft translation and grouping of Rilke's work. This nontraditional collection predates prose poetry and short-short fiction, yet speaks to these contemporary styles of new craft. --Rachel Mennies, ForeWord Magazine

[A] superb bilingual edition. An extraordinary anthology. . . . The Inner Sky is highly recommended especially for college library literature collections. --Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Rainer Maria Rilke was born on December 4, 1875 in Prague. He published his first book of poetry in 1894. The lover of Lou Andreas-Salome and secretary to Auguste Rodin, Rilke went on to become a famous figure in his own right, publishing his great book, New Poems, in 1907. After WWI, he moved permanently to Switzerland where he wrote the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus in the last years of his life. He died of leukemia on December 29, 1926.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: David R Godine; 1 Blg edition (July 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567923887
• ISBN-13: 978-1567923889
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,433,575 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rilke --newly translated poems, November 25, 2011

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reader172 - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Inner Sky: Poems, Notes, Dreams (Paperback)

I am a poet and a poetry lover-- especially Rilke. I have read other books by this translator and appreciate his work. I looked forward to a book of new Rilke poetry that I hadn't read before. To be honest, in my very humble opinion the poems themselves are not Rilke's best nor most resonant. I would say this book is worth having in your collection if you are a lover of Rilke and want all of his poetry on your shelf. As far as the actual poems go, I am more appreciative of those that have been previously published by other translators. Most of the poems & prose in this book did not have the power nor the depth that I associate with Rilke. I started the book, put it aside, and came back to it again, but still was not 'hooked' as I usually am by Rilke. But again, it is just my opinion.