Poems to Night

by Rainer Maria Rilke, Will Stone (Translator)

A collection of haunting, mystical poems of the night by the great Rainer Maria Rilke - most of which have never before been translated into English

One night I held between my hands
your face. The moon fell upon it.

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.

Never before translated into English, this collection brings together all Rilke's significant night poems in one volume.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, 20th Century, German Literature, Collections, Literature

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

A mystic lyricism and precise imagery often marked verse of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose collections profoundly influenced 20th-century German literature and include The Book of Hours (1905) and The Duino Elegies (1923).

People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.

His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge .

He also wrote more than four hundred poems in French, dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland, his homeland of choice.

Reviews

[morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could never love someone the way I love poetry

[Natalie all_books_great_and_small · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalleyand the publishers.

Poems to Night is a translated book of poems written by Rainer Maria Rilke. Each poems is short and compact and was originally written in a notebook in which Rainer Maria Rilke gave to his friend, all written about the night. I found it hard to connect with these poems and may go back and revisit this book again in the future.
If you are a fan of his work don't let this put you off.
From what I could relate to I felt that he was explaining about the night giving us the confidence to be seen and recognised for who and what we are.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a new English translation of Rilke’s 1916 collection of poems themed around the night. It includes the twenty-two poems of the “Poems to Night” collection, as well as seven draft poems from the same collection and another fifteen poems and fragments on the theme of night. Most of the poems were written during the same period as “Duino Elegies,” which is one of Rilke’s most beloved collections.

The period in which the collection was being composed was a tragic one for Rilke. He was trapped by the war in Germany (while he was born in Prague, he’d been living in France at the time) and all his possessions [in France] were disposed of by his landlord. He had a bit of military service, and -- though it was a desk job -- he wasn’t cut out for it. And he had an intense affair with a French artist.

The poems mix imagery with a heavy dose of strategic ambiguity -- leaving the possibility for the poems to be interpreted in various ways. One might suspect a collection themed around the nighttime and written by a German in the midst of life crises would be deadly morose, but I felt that Rilke balanced the more somber elements with beauty and vibrancy. The poems felt more like a reach for catharsis than a wallowing in suffering (a fault of many poets, in my opinion.)

I found this collection to be evocative and mind-expanding. I’d highly recommend it for readers of poetry.

[Macarena (followed that rabbit) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This edition by Pushkin Press and translated by Will Stone, presents the twenty-two poems in one volume translated into english for the first time.

It is divided into:
Poems to Night, drafts of Poems to Night, and further poems and sketches related to the Night.

I have read some of Rainer Maria Rilke's poems before, so when I saw this book about the "night theme" it immediately called my attention. Although, I couldn't find what I was expecting. It's hard to explain why, but I just can say that I haven't been able to really feel what they say.

Thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for providing me with this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

[Adriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que no fue la mejor opción para empezar con Rilke este libro, pero lo tenía en epub. Los Poemas a la noche son zarpados, la Otra poesía póstuma y dispersa (la mayor parte del libro) por partes también y por otras no tanto. Muchas veces me daba esa sensación de que sería imposible escribir otra cosa, un "es esto". Quizás sea porque leí mucho romanticismo, Nietzsche y afines y por eso Rilke se me hizo muy cercano. Me encantaría saber alemán y todos los idiomas y no leer más traducciones de nada, supongo que me perdí muchas cosas. De todas formas es imposible no perderse cosas, y no sólo en poesía traducida, no nos engañemos. Copio el que más me gustó porque <3:

Al Ángel

Alzado candelabro, rotundo sobre el límite y sereno.
La noche se efectúa allá en lo alto:
nosotros tanteamos en lo entenebrecido,
nuestro ser derrochamos junto a tu fundamento.

Ese es nuestro destino: ignorar la salida
de ese desconcertante interno ámbito.
Te apareces encima de cada impedimento nuestro
y lo incendias como a una alta cima.

Tu alegría se alza sobre nuestros dominios
y a nosotros apenas se nos da un sedimento:
como la pura noche de equinoccio,
te yergues dividiendo un día de otro día.

¿Quién sería capaz de administrarte
el mejunje secreto que a nosotros nos turba?
Tú recibes tu gloria de todo lo sublime;
nosotros nos tratamos con lo ínfimo.

Si lloramos, no hacemos más que sensiblerías,
al contemplar estamos a lo sumo despiertos;
nuestra sonrisa no seduce mucho,
y si seduce, entonces, ¿quién la sigue?

(Cualquiera.) Ángel, entonces, ¿deberé lamentarme?,
¿pero cómo haría mío mi lamento?
Ah yo grito, yo bato con dos troncos,
pero no creo que nadie pueda estar escuchándome.

Mi alboroto no alcanzaría eco en ti
si tú no me sintieras tan sólo porque soy.
¡Ilumina, ilumina! Allá entre las estrellas
sea yo más contemplado, porque me desvanezco.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems to Night is the first time Rilke's Night poems have been published in their entirety, translated in English. In 1916, Rilke presented his friend and fellow writer Rudolph Kassner the twenty-two poems in a handwritten notebook.

Rilke wrote the poems between January 1913 and February 1914, during the same time he was working on the Duino Elegies, which has been my favorite volume of poetry for over forty years. And of the elegies, the eighth is my favorite; it was dedicated to Kassner.

In the Introduction, Will Stone confesses that the Poems to Night "possess the aura of a clandestine text, and resist any assured interpretation."

Which is a great relief to me, baffled as I have been by these verses. Each reading further reveals the arc of Rilke's vision, how the poems reflect his basic understanding. The experience of being human and finite, and aware of the vast mystery beyond, is the bedrock of Rilke's poetry.

I read the Poems of Night, and read them again. I reread portions of Rilke's biography and a fiction novel of his life to understand Rilke at the time he wrote these poems.

Rilke arouses feelings in me, with certain lines flashing out like neon, and yet to understand his meaning seems to always hover beyond my full grasp. I struggle with the poems, eliciting more from the lines with every reading. His poetry is so unique to his own world view.

There is the theme of alienation, how humans can never fully connect. And how humans are concerned with the temporal and trivial, "seduced" by the world. Above the world is night, the realm of angels, a sacred otherness which we long to encounter and yet "renounce."

The ending lines are powerful.

Lifting one's eyes from the book, from the close and countable lines, to the consummate night outside: O how the compressed feelings scatter like stars, as if a posy of blooms were untied...Everywhere craving for connection and nowhere desire, world too much and earth enough. (Paris, February 1914)~from Poems to Night by Rainer Maria Rilke

Drafts of the Night poems are also presented, along with snippets from his other works that include the theme of Night, and biographical notes on Rilke's life. He was abroad when WWI broke out, unable to return to his Paris apartment. He lost all his manuscripts, books, and personal belongings, including photographs of his family. When he presented the notebook of poems to Kassner, he was in the military working as a clerk.

Poems to Night is a significant addition to Rilke's published works that will interest his legion of readers as well as all lovers of poetry.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

[Kru · Rating 3 out of 5]

Night, is too overpowering, there is a beauty to it, the darkness holds in it a plethora of secrets that equally entice and scare. While the poems are dedicated to Night, there is too much of Moon in this collection. If light be the identity of the Day, shouldn't darkness reign over the Night? There is an overall feeling of helplessness, and longing throughout, faint and vulnerable.

This is the first of Rilke's works that I read, so I am not sure if I started right. The poems are beautiful, the words rally one after the other effortlessly, flowing flawlessly, but then too much of distress, and worry, that brings down the positive emotions I felt. The blurb says the writings belong to a period that played a very important time in Rilke's development into a poet, and some poems are marked as drafts as well.

[Alice]

DNF at 50% (page 41) - not feeling this collection at the moment, will return to at a later date.

[Bea (beansbookshelves) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley.

This just wasn't the book for me. It took me a while to read it because I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't really enjoy reading it, but I hope other people will. Rating: 2/5 stars.

[kunstlesen · Rating 5 out of 5]

✨💛✨💛🌚✨🌚✨

[Lu luentreletras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Con cada cosa nueva que leo de Rilke más y más me enamoro de sus ideas y de su manera de expresarse con palabras.

Me encantó muchísimo este poemario y todo el trabajo puesto detrás. La introducción me parece fundamental y siento le aporta un montón a la edición del libro porque viene a acompañar la selección de poemas de Rilke que lo componen y te ayuda a entender mejor el contexto de producción de todos estos poemas, algo que siento es fundamentas, porque no es lo mismo el Rilke de las Cartas a un joven poeta que el Rilke posterior a los Poemas a Orfeo.
A su vez, me gustó muchísimo que el libro incluyese una biografía detallada de la vida de Rilke y del orden de producción de sus obras. Esto nos ayuda, nuevamente, a entender el contexto de producción de los poemas y así interpretarlos de distintas formas.
Este es un libro que le recomendaría a cualquier persona que quiere leer a Rilke. No siento que sea el mejor libro para empezar a leer al poeta, pero tampoco siento que sea necesario ya haber leído mucho del autor antes de adentrarse en este poemario. Yo, justamente, a penas estoy comenzando a leer a Rilke e igual tuve una experiencia increíble leyendo este libro, porque leyendo los distintos poemas note como el tono de la escritura y el estilo variaba un poco según el año de producción de cada poema y eso me entusiasmó aún más a seguir leyendo más del autor. Pero por esto de que dentro de este poemario hay poemas del Rilke de veintitantos hasta del Rilke de 1922, creo que este también es un libro excelente para releer al autor. Para regresar a el luego de ya haber leído sus trabajos más importantes, y reencontrarte con sus palabras y sus versos y redescubrirlo en la relectura. Porque Rilke es en definitiva, para mi, de esos autores que nunca terminás de leer del todo.
En fin, un gran libro, con una hermosa edición, que súper recomiendo.
Yo misma, que leí el libro gracias a una copia que conseguí por NetGalley, me voy a estar comprando el libro en físico porque me encantó.

[Fern A · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only work of Rainer Maria Rilke that I’ve previously read was ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ which I loved and found to be full of wonderful quotable lines and phrases. This in many ways is similar. The poems seem to float in and out likes waves on sand and there is either the option to read them and let the words float over you or dig a bit down at the layers within- both of which I’ve done and found equally rewarding. The translation here is very good and the introduction (which I read at the end to avoid spoilers) is far from dry and really adds to the background, as does the biographical section at the end. A fascinating poet.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

[cosmina · Rating 3 out of 5]

What reaches us with the starlight,
what reaches us,
take the world in your countenance,
but do not take it lightly.


Show the night that you silently received
what she brought.
It is only when you merge into her
that the night knows you.

[Duncan Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dies mann goes crazy‼️‼️

[Andreu Ramírez · Rating 5 out of 5]

- Pienso desarrollar una ecuación pura
más allá de esas semejanzas
que por ser dobles nos separan. -

[Ayesha (Seokjin's Version) ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning poems although not my favorite translation

[Thalia]

other reviews are so wrong this is gorgeous and i’ve never even read rilke before. i had to exercise incredible self-control to not read the whole collection in one sitting. i wish i knew german so i could enjoy these in their original language.

[areebah · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Night has a long history of being commonly ascribed to states of religious or mystical consciousness, yet it exists right there before us, making its presence known with unswerving reliability, and for Rilke it represents a celestial gateway or enacting space between inner and outer reality, or the enclosure within which the self may, if courageous enough, extend from the earthly.’

[Mélanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Au cœur de la nuit je veux m'entretenir avec l'ange, lui demander s'il reconnaît mes yeux.
S'il demandait soudain: vois-tu l'Éden? il me faudrait dire alors: l'Éden est en feu
Je veux élever ma bouche jusqu'à lui, insensible comme celui qui ne désire rien.
Et si l'ange parlait ainsi: que pressens-tu de la vie? il me faudrait dire alors: la vie consume
S'il trouvait en moi cette joie qui devient éternelle en son esprit, - et qu'il la prît, l'élevât dans ses mains, il me faudrait dire alors : la joie est folie

Recueil sublimé par la préface de Marguerite Yourcenar, qui analyse les mots et use des siens pour retranscrire les idées comme personne.

[Thea | (unapologetic_bibliosmia) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely love poetry, and love even more the theme of ‘Night’. I was very excited to receive this book of poetry dedicated solely to Night, in return for a review.

I have always felt drawn to the night time, when I am sad, angry, upset or even happy I feel the need to go for a walk in the dark, or to take a drive and sit in the dark somewhere and just be at one with the great universe. This poetry ,all exploring themes of nighttime seems to portray this inner lust for the nighttime in the same manner. I really enjoyed the different elements of the night, from the feelings of great vast nothingness, to the ethereal and almost divine.

My favorite line: “Overflowing skies of squandered stars splendour over grievance. Rather than into pillows, weep upwards. Here, at the weeping, at the ending face, proliferating, begins the enraptured world space. Who will interrupt, if you thrust that way, the flow? No one.”

This was a great little compilation of poetry from Rainer Rilke and I enjoyed the journey.

[Whisper19 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC.

The collection “Poems to Night” offers all 22 poems from the notebook given to his friend Rudolf Kassner, but also includes sketches for poems and other completed poems with the same topic – the night.
Rilke here offers a collection of morsels for the soul. He doesn’t bother the reader with long verses, with complicated rhymes, with washed out epithets. He just gives the reader an insight into the connection a person has with their constant companion.
We have all felt the emotions he describes here, but, not being poets, we were unable to put them into words. Rilke then serves as a translator for those indescribable feelings.
He talks about love and our constant search for that something that keeps slipping from our grasp. We carry our thoughts and yearnings with us and we look for someone to offer them to, but sadly we carry them
…to the stranger, who misunderstood us,
alas to the other, whom we never found…
But even when we are feeling down and defeated, the night brings us recuperation, it sooths us and makes us stronger
When through the olive trees’ pale separation
the night made me stronger with stars…
We want to be seen and in the night, it seems like millions of stars are looking down on us, seeing us, “surveying us.” The night gives us courage to face being seen.
This whole collection of poems is the kind of book one should keep on one’s nightstand and turn to when the traffic din is down and all you can see through your window are the moon and the stars.
A wonderful book, a wonderful poet.

[Justine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite hard to understand, and to feel, even if the writing is beautiful.

[Kyra Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems (1913-14) deal with themes that I recognize in his earlier work, having read his letters (1902-1908) and the Notebook of Malte (1910). This is my favorite so far. They meditate on the isolation of the human condition, the longing for intimacy and unity with the world, and the redemptive, transformative power of embracing the sublime.

Some similarities with poets preceding Rilke — Solitude and silence is central for reflection, nature is a grounding influence, and Rilke longs to dissolve into the infinite as a path to the divine. He asks: “out of me and all of that, to make a single thing, Lord” with the stars, clouds, mountains, river, infants, and elderly “— (and me).”

From my reading history, I notice Rilke does not idolize or express nostalgia for childhood. For Rilke, passion and wonder is uncovered through experience and reflection in the night which brings greater intimacy with the world; “thoughts of night, raised from intuitive experience, that already passed into the questioning child with silence.” Thoughts of night and poetry rise with lived experience where understanding is built through continuous contemplation. Rilke writes: “here, in the crowded vessel, night, added to nights secretly procreates.” His poems maintain a childlike longing and awe of the mystery, beauty and grandeur of the world.

His view of relationships is close to what Woolf began writing about around the same period (1915~25), though Rilke is much more sentimental. For them, full understanding or union between people is impossible, and would be contrary to freedom or growth. He writes succinctly in his letters that good relationships are a “guarding of eachother’s solitude” in which both partners “succeed in loving the expanse between them.” In an intimate poem he writes: “Once I took into my hands | your face. The moon fell upon it. | Most unfathomable of things | beneath an overflowing of tears. | Like a willing thing, quietly subsisting, | it was almost like holding something | and yet was no entity in the cold | night that infinitely eludes me…”

There are many religious symbols (shepherd, angels, stars…) and themes throughout including the need to transcend earthly temptations for divine purity. And the value of suffering: “Rather than into pillows, weep upwards.” Pain is a necessary process for transformation and renewal, to transcend sorrow and engage with god or something greater and universal. “Oh, how can a sentient being, who wills, who tears himself open, unyielding night, in the end, not resemble you?” Through struggle and vulnerability, humans embody the sublime. Adding because I thought this line was particularly beautiful — he writes of god as “sublime as a swan on his eternity of fathomless surface.”

In this collection, Rilke invites you to embrace pain, and loneliness to grow and transform in the eternal expansiveness of the night. “In contained night, the dispersed face grants yours space” and it is in the space these poems are born.

An ending poem begins with: “Lifting one's eyes from the book, from the close and countable lines, | to the consummate night outside: | O how the compressed feelings scatter like stars, | as if a posy of blooms were untied:” It gives you a sense of being released from the beauty of this collection and dissolved into the expanse of the world around you —

[Juli Rahel · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I haven't consistently read Rainer Maria Rilke I have encountered his poems and other writings frequently. I will see snippets of it here or there and it always ends up hitting close to home. So I jumped at the chance to get into his poetry proper, to see how they connected to each other and to, hopefully, gain a clearer understanding of Rilke as a poet. Also, look at that cover, how am I supposed to resist that. Thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In his introduction, Will Stone tries to place these poems in the wider oeuvre of Rilke's poetry. Written around the same time as his Duino Elegies, these poems are taken from a notebook gifted to Rudolf Kassner. Late night is the perfect time for this, when everything is dark and quiet and you can just be and ponder without interruptions. For me, night has always been calmer than day. Moonlight and starlight are infinitely preferable to sunlight. Not to quote The Hobbit movies but for me starlight is memory and is precious, and night allows me to ponder and consider in the way the day doesn't. Just as night allows one the freedom to roam, so Rilke's poems cover a variety of themes and ideas, lingering on them but not belabouring them. As Stone argues, these poems feel like 'a clandestine text, and resist any assured interpretation'. Rilke isn't aiming towards one message or one theme. Rather, Poems to Night roam freely but all carry an equal emotional weight. There is a desire for connection, but also a desire to live freely and to not be constrained. The below line is an example of that:

'Overflowing skies of squandered stars splendour over grievance. Rather than into pillows, weep upwards.'

Just like midnight ponderings, Rilke's thoughts and poems leap wildly. They are not restricted to specific rhymes or rhythms but rather speak strongly to the soul. They are not long and ponderous, strangled in metaphors but rather flow smoothly. Will Stone surely did an excellent job translating this flow to retain Rilke's seeming effortlessness and inspiration. Stone's introduction provides an excellent background to Rilke's creative process and the circumstances in which this collection came into existence, namely Rilke's displacement due to WWI. It explains the lack of permanence and the evanescence of night that dominates the poems. Although the poems aren't easy to understand at first glance and although they may require some perseverance and patience, they are stunning once you let them work on you.

Rilke's Poems to Night are beautiful and presented beautifully in this edition. Stone's translation and introduction are illuminating and anyone with a love for poetry will greatly enjoy this.

Link: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/...

[Surya V.n · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rilke ♥️

1

The sky, vast, full of joyous retention,
a provisional space, an excess of world.
And we, too far away for the formation,
too near to turn away the future.
There a star falls! And our desire to see it,
with a confused look, ardently conjoined:
What has begun, and what has elapsed?
What is guilty? And what forgiven?

2
What reaches us with the starlight,
what reaches us,
take the world in your countenance,
but do not take it lightly.
Show the night that you silently received
what she brought.
It is only when you merge into her
that the night knows you.

3
At night I wish to converse with the angel,
ask if he recognizes my eyes.
When he suddenly enquires: Can you see Eden?
Then I must say: Eden is on fire
I will lift my mouth to him,
hard as one who lacks desire.
And if the angel says: Do you know life?
Then I must say: Life devours
If he finds that joy within me
that becomes eternal in his spirit, –
and he takes it, raises it in his hands,
then I must say: joy is madness.

*

[Ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 dark dark stars

"We, in the struggling nights, we fall from closeness to closeness; and where the beloved thaws we are a plunging stone"

Like thousands of other people in the world, I too love Rilke's works, because of course I do, so I had a very keen interest in reading this book when I saw it was a collection of his works solely based on the night; and the inherent romanticism of the night is incredibly alluring, but unfortunately this collection just did not hold its own against some of his other pieces. Very few stanzas were so that you'd want to halt and read it again and again, and in more ways than one, it fell short. ヾ( ￣O￣)ツ

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry in translation is notoriously difficult to evaluate unless one is fluent in both languages. Having only the experience of reading some of Rilke’s other work in translation, I will say this volume seems to need context. The introduction certainly helps in this regard. Still, the American English-speaking audience will probably be academics. There is much to contemplate and study, but the verses lack either the form or the lyricism that seems to appeal to contemporary American readers of poetry.

Thank you to Folio Society and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Astrid]

Learning that to enjoy poetry, I have to savour it. I need to revisit this and the lucky thing is, to be prepared for book club, I'll have to go back and have a look at this again. Some first-read favourites:
- Did I not breathe out of midnights...
- Strong, silent, candelabra placed...
- Straining so hard against the powerful night...
- Thoughts of night, raised from intuited experience...
- You who super-elevates me with this...
- From a Stormy Night
- Stars Behind Olives (likely my favourite).
- Urban Summer Night
- Like the evening wind...

[Peter Greenidge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hadn't read Rilke outside of Letters to a Young Poet so my friend lent me this. More abstract than the poetry I tend to love, but still really beautiful and a couple of the poems really struck me.

"If he finds that joy within me
that becomes eternal in his spirit, -
and he takes it, raises it in his hands,
then I must say: joy is madness"

[starr *:･ﾟ✧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

why must one go out and take alien things
upon oneself, rather like the porter
who lifts the market basket filled by strangers
from stall to stall, and follows on, loaded down,
and cannot enquire: Lord, why the feast?