In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented the writer Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems, meticulously copied out in his own hand, which bore the title Poems to Night. This cycle of poems which came about in an almost clandestine manner, are now thought to represent one of the key stages of this master poet's development.
This collection brings together all Rilke's significant night poems, which have never before been published together in English.
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O now we have, with what whimpering, caressed ourselves, shoulders and eyelid. THE SIBLINGS
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(@PushkinPress, 3 December 2020, ebook, 96 pages, #ARC from the publisher via @edelweiss_squad and voluntarily reviewed)
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I'd never heard of the poet before so didn't have any expectations before I read this collection of poetry. I really didn't think much of it. Rilke seems to be an acquitted taste to me I didn't get on with this collection very much. On the one hand, the poems are quite vivid and beautifully written. This should be a good thing. However, I struggled to really understand the poetry or the point Rilke was making. They didn't have any real substance to me. I was very disappointed with this collection.