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Uncollected Poems
Distilling the best of Rainer Maria Rilke's uncollected poems and offering a selection that conveys the variety of Rilke's lesser-known writings, a collection of poems reveals a freer, less polished poet and comprises a great achievement in twentieth-century poetry.
265 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
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581 people want to read
About the author
Rainer Maria Rilke
1,809 books6,967 followersA 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
October 27, 2016
You don’t know nights of love?
Don’t petals of soft words float upon your blood?
Are there no places on your dear body
that keep remembering like eyes?
----
Long you must suffer, knowing not what,
until suddenly out of spitefully chewed fruit
your suffering’s taste comes forth in you.
Then you will love almost instantly what’s tasted.
No one will ever talk you out of it.
----
Now we wake up with our memory
and fix our gazes on that which was;
whispering sweetness, which once coursed
through us, sits silently beside us with loosened hair.
----
O these places toward which we surge,
pushing into the scant surfaces
all the waves of our heart,
our pleasures and our weaknesses,
and to whom do we finally hold them out?
To the stranger, who misunderstood us,
to the other, whom we never found,
to those slaves, who bound us,
to the spring winds, which promptly vanished,
and to silence, that spendthrift.
----
Tears, those most intensely felt, rise!
O when a life
has fully risen and from the clouds of its own
heartgrief
descends: we call that rain Death.
But then, in our want, the dark soil grows closer to
us—,
in our riches, the mysterious loam more prized.
----
Others carry the wine, others carry the oil
in the hollowed vault their partition circumscribed.
I, as a smaller measure, and as the slimmest, hollow myself for a different need,
for the sake of plummeting tears.
Wine grows richer, and oil grows ever clearer in the
jug.
What happens with tears? —They made me heavy,
made me blinder and made me iridescent at the
edge,
made me brittle finally and made me empty.
----
Undeterrable, I’ll complete this course,
it scares me when something mortal holds me.
Once a womb held me.
To wrestle out of it was deadly:
I wrestled into life. But arms—how deep are arms,
how fertile are they, what chance
that they through the inaugural agony
of new birth might be escaped?
----
Rose, O pure contradiction, delight
in being no one’s sleep under so many
lids
----
But if you’d try this: to be hand in my hand
as in the wineglass the wine is wine.
If you’d try this.
----
The birdcalls begin their praise.
And it’s their right. We listen closely.
(We behind masks, in costumes!)
What do they call? a little willfulness,
a little sadness, and such huge promise,
sawing away at the half-locked future.
And in between, healing in our hearing:
the beautiful silence that they break.
Don’t petals of soft words float upon your blood?
Are there no places on your dear body
that keep remembering like eyes?
----
Long you must suffer, knowing not what,
until suddenly out of spitefully chewed fruit
your suffering’s taste comes forth in you.
Then you will love almost instantly what’s tasted.
No one will ever talk you out of it.
----
Now we wake up with our memory
and fix our gazes on that which was;
whispering sweetness, which once coursed
through us, sits silently beside us with loosened hair.
----
O these places toward which we surge,
pushing into the scant surfaces
all the waves of our heart,
our pleasures and our weaknesses,
and to whom do we finally hold them out?
To the stranger, who misunderstood us,
to the other, whom we never found,
to those slaves, who bound us,
to the spring winds, which promptly vanished,
and to silence, that spendthrift.
----
Tears, those most intensely felt, rise!
O when a life
has fully risen and from the clouds of its own
heartgrief
descends: we call that rain Death.
But then, in our want, the dark soil grows closer to
us—,
in our riches, the mysterious loam more prized.
----
Others carry the wine, others carry the oil
in the hollowed vault their partition circumscribed.
I, as a smaller measure, and as the slimmest, hollow myself for a different need,
for the sake of plummeting tears.
Wine grows richer, and oil grows ever clearer in the
jug.
What happens with tears? —They made me heavy,
made me blinder and made me iridescent at the
edge,
made me brittle finally and made me empty.
----
Undeterrable, I’ll complete this course,
it scares me when something mortal holds me.
Once a womb held me.
To wrestle out of it was deadly:
I wrestled into life. But arms—how deep are arms,
how fertile are they, what chance
that they through the inaugural agony
of new birth might be escaped?
----
Rose, O pure contradiction, delight
in being no one’s sleep under so many
lids
----
But if you’d try this: to be hand in my hand
as in the wineglass the wine is wine.
If you’d try this.
----
The birdcalls begin their praise.
And it’s their right. We listen closely.
(We behind masks, in costumes!)
What do they call? a little willfulness,
a little sadness, and such huge promise,
sawing away at the half-locked future.
And in between, healing in our hearing:
the beautiful silence that they break.
Read
October 22, 2017Come when you should. All this will have been
passing through me for you to breathe.
I have gazed at it for so long, for your sake,
namelessly, with the gaze of poverty,
and have loved it, as if already you drank it in.
And yet: when I recall that all this—
myself, stars, flowers, and the sharp flight
of a bird out of gesturing brushwood,
the clouds’ haughtiness and what the wind
could do to me at night, whisking me
out of one being into a next,—that all this,
in endless succession (for I am all this,
am what the potion’s roar left behind
in my ear, am that exquisite taste which once
a ripe fruit expended on my lips),—
that all this, when once you’re really here,
all, even back to the boy’s low gaze
into the chalices of high-grown flower fields,
even back to one of my mother’s smiles
which I perhaps, thronged with your being,
shall think of as something stolen—, that all this
I then shall have to inexhaustibly outgive,
night and day, so much unsparingly
assimilated nature—, never knowing if what
begins to glow in you is mine: perhaps
you’ll grow more beautiful entirely from your own beauty,
from the profusion of restedness in your limbs,
from what is sweetest in your blood,—for all I know,
because there is awareness even in your hand,
because your hair flatters your shoulders,
because something in the dark breeze
is one with you, because you forget me totally,
because you don’t strain to hear, because you are a woman:
when I recall how I’ve dipped tenderness
into blood, into that never startled
soundless heartblood of things so loved
Toledo, November 1912
passing through me for you to breathe.
I have gazed at it for so long, for your sake,
namelessly, with the gaze of poverty,
and have loved it, as if already you drank it in.
And yet: when I recall that all this—
myself, stars, flowers, and the sharp flight
of a bird out of gesturing brushwood,
the clouds’ haughtiness and what the wind
could do to me at night, whisking me
out of one being into a next,—that all this,
in endless succession (for I am all this,
am what the potion’s roar left behind
in my ear, am that exquisite taste which once
a ripe fruit expended on my lips),—
that all this, when once you’re really here,
all, even back to the boy’s low gaze
into the chalices of high-grown flower fields,
even back to one of my mother’s smiles
which I perhaps, thronged with your being,
shall think of as something stolen—, that all this
I then shall have to inexhaustibly outgive,
night and day, so much unsparingly
assimilated nature—, never knowing if what
begins to glow in you is mine: perhaps
you’ll grow more beautiful entirely from your own beauty,
from the profusion of restedness in your limbs,
from what is sweetest in your blood,—for all I know,
because there is awareness even in your hand,
because your hair flatters your shoulders,
because something in the dark breeze
is one with you, because you forget me totally,
because you don’t strain to hear, because you are a woman:
when I recall how I’ve dipped tenderness
into blood, into that never startled
soundless heartblood of things so loved
Toledo, November 1912
March 2, 2023
Oh look at me, see, over here, how safe I am
and unprotected and having all I need.
Total score: 5/5 stars
and unprotected and having all I need.
Total score: 5/5 stars
September 11, 2015
Another Rilke volume I'll pick up and read bits of over and over again. Superb.
October 17, 2021
Rilke of course never ceases to amaze and inspire. I’m unsure if it’s because I didn’t love the translations or if it’s because nothing will ever live up to Rilke’s Book of Hours, but 4 stars seems more appropriate than 5. Regardless, an excellent collection of poems that make the wheels turn and the heart ache.
June 24, 2020
As usual, Rilke fails to disappoint. I am probably biased but believe me when I say that his writing seemed to always deeply touch my soul.
His works are so profound and perceptive. I enjoyed Edward Snow's translations as well.
Here's to more Rilke!
His works are so profound and perceptive. I enjoyed Edward Snow's translations as well.
Here's to more Rilke!
June 27, 2018
3 1/4 stars
February 8, 2022
rating this book of poetry five stars seems almost comical in light of the fact that rilke is like...canon
February 17, 2025
Unlike Snow, I think these poems resemble Rilke’s others: deliberate with resonant images more than ‘headlong and in transit’. Top tips: Spanish Trilogy, Mountains of the Heart.
June 29, 2017
So. I've tried. Really I have, but I confess I'm no lover of Rilke. Perhaps I would feel different if I had studied his poetry in a class with someone for a teacher who really did love it, but I've attempted it alone, and I find that little he writes resonates. Writing this pains me because I came to it with high hopes having heard so much of Rilke. People so often seem genuinely in awe. The word that comes to mind is pretentious.
I love poetry. I read a good bit of it. I must because I teach it both to students of literature and of creative writing. In Uncollected Poems I crossed some lines I rather liked:
You don’t know nights of love? Don’t
petals of soft words float upon your blood?
Are there no places on your dear body
that keep remembering like eyes?
Paris, summer 1909
And the lines
"losing also is ours; and even forgetting
has a shape in the permanent realm of mutation..."
I like very much because they simmer in the brain, tease my thinking in a satisfying manner.
Still, too much of his verse breaks every "rule" (and I put that word in quotation marks for very good reason) for what makes good poetry. He violates the central idea that poetic language should be fresh, engaging, and packed with a meaning that can be got at by the reader rather than some obscure morass of inscrutable suggestions. The rule rather than the exception of Rilke's writing seems to be vagary, and I spend a great deal of time and effort in my own verse as well as in my instruction to students working against this very thing.
I'll admit that sometimes, perhaps very often, a hint can please more than the whole, so this isn't quite the thing about Rilke that displeases. It's just that a thin broth doesn't make a meal; if there's nothing more, sooner or later I'm going to leave the table hungry.
I love poetry. I read a good bit of it. I must because I teach it both to students of literature and of creative writing. In Uncollected Poems I crossed some lines I rather liked:
You don’t know nights of love? Don’t
petals of soft words float upon your blood?
Are there no places on your dear body
that keep remembering like eyes?
Paris, summer 1909
And the lines
"losing also is ours; and even forgetting
has a shape in the permanent realm of mutation..."
I like very much because they simmer in the brain, tease my thinking in a satisfying manner.
Still, too much of his verse breaks every "rule" (and I put that word in quotation marks for very good reason) for what makes good poetry. He violates the central idea that poetic language should be fresh, engaging, and packed with a meaning that can be got at by the reader rather than some obscure morass of inscrutable suggestions. The rule rather than the exception of Rilke's writing seems to be vagary, and I spend a great deal of time and effort in my own verse as well as in my instruction to students working against this very thing.
I'll admit that sometimes, perhaps very often, a hint can please more than the whole, so this isn't quite the thing about Rilke that displeases. It's just that a thin broth doesn't make a meal; if there's nothing more, sooner or later I'm going to leave the table hungry.
October 8, 2008
Rilke was one of the great imagists of the century. This collection contains magnificently translated poems by Edward Snow, who manages to capture the grace and power of Rilke's work. It is not altogether clear whether or not these poems were intended for publication, but it is a miracle that they were.
Rilke was a poet of images and of feelings, he captured again and again the feeling of man the individual caught in the sublime beauty of the earth and the cosmos:
"Earlier, how often, we'd remain, star in star,
when from the constellation the freest,
the announcing star, stepped forth and called.
Star in star we marveled,
He, the speaker of the star-sign,
I, my life's companion star.
And the night, how it granted us
The wide-awake accord" (235).
An excellent bilingual edition on the whole and a must for any reader of modern poetry.
Rilke was a poet of images and of feelings, he captured again and again the feeling of man the individual caught in the sublime beauty of the earth and the cosmos:
"Earlier, how often, we'd remain, star in star,
when from the constellation the freest,
the announcing star, stepped forth and called.
Star in star we marveled,
He, the speaker of the star-sign,
I, my life's companion star.
And the night, how it granted us
The wide-awake accord" (235).
An excellent bilingual edition on the whole and a must for any reader of modern poetry.
November 11, 2009
Rilke's insights into life, death, love, pain, and creativity, are simply astounding. I discovered this book 7 years ago at age 17 and I go back to the poems often.
Rilke stands as a testament to the close ties between poets and prophets. The best poets have the capacity to speak about the depths and the heights of life and the human spirit, and to give us a taste of hidden worlds. As Kahlil Gibran, another poetic master once wrote:
"There lies a green field between the scholar and the poet; should the scholar cross it he becomes a wise man; should the poet cross it, he becomes a prophet."
Rilke stands as a testament to the close ties between poets and prophets. The best poets have the capacity to speak about the depths and the heights of life and the human spirit, and to give us a taste of hidden worlds. As Kahlil Gibran, another poetic master once wrote:
"There lies a green field between the scholar and the poet; should the scholar cross it he becomes a wise man; should the poet cross it, he becomes a prophet."
November 25, 2018
Whether the poem is a handful of lines or spans pages, Rilke resonates for a willing and open reader. I am grateful for having taken my time with these words, and I'll encourage you to do the same.
When we read these poems, we simultaneously glimpse our were, and our will be.
"A Walk" by Rilke
Already my gaze is on the hill, that sunlit one,
up ahead on the path I've scarcely started.
In the same way, what we couldn't grasp grasps us:
blazingly visible, there in the distance --
and changes us, even if we don't reach it,
into what we, scarcely sensing it, already are;
a gesture signals, answering our gesture . . .
But we feel only the opposing wind.
When we read these poems, we simultaneously glimpse our were, and our will be.
"A Walk" by Rilke
Already my gaze is on the hill, that sunlit one,
up ahead on the path I've scarcely started.
In the same way, what we couldn't grasp grasps us:
blazingly visible, there in the distance --
and changes us, even if we don't reach it,
into what we, scarcely sensing it, already are;
a gesture signals, answering our gesture . . .
But we feel only the opposing wind.
Read
November 15, 2010Looking for a reading for a wedding. Any good nuggets you have would be much appreciated.
I shouldn't probably rate this because I know I would have liked to read it for pleasure but I pretty much hate looking for something to read at this wedding. I'm going to laugh at my own self in the middle of this reading if I don't find something a little less lovey dovey.
I shouldn't probably rate this because I know I would have liked to read it for pleasure but I pretty much hate looking for something to read at this wedding. I'm going to laugh at my own self in the middle of this reading if I don't find something a little less lovey dovey.
November 22, 2016
Be weary: these are unfinished fragments of poems. Still, worth the price of admission as Rilke is a master seer. The good moments glitter and transcend space and time. The rest of it was likely not meant to see the light of day. But with Rilke publishing so little at such high quality, a posthumous collection is inevitable.
He saw God in the face of the darkness.
He saw God in the face of the darkness.
June 12, 2009
these range from two lines to two pages, and even in partial formation they are achingly beautiful.
"Ah, as we prayed for human help: angels soundlessly,
with single strides, climbed over
our prostrate hearts"
...
"Ah, as we prayed for human help: angels soundlessly,
with single strides, climbed over
our prostrate hearts"
...
January 10, 2010
I've been reading from this volume to my son in the bath and at bedtime. He seems to be enjoying it; at least he doesn't push it out of my hands or put his hand to my mouth (his sign for "That's nice Mom but I've had enough.") Therefore, a winner.
January 4, 2013
Favorite part: "You don't know nights of love? Don't/ petals of soft words float upon your blood?/ Are there no places on your dear body/ that keep remembering like eyes?" Rilke is brilliant but sometimes too elusive, too metaphysical for my poetry taste.
January 28, 2013
Excellent. Some read like journal excerpts: The loaded doll, which falls into the chasm", while others are spanning poems. Quality varies, but it is Rilke, and it is a "smaller measure" of a greater corpus.
Read
August 24, 2013One of my favorite collections. Rilke writes of grand schemes and small moments; always just obscure enough to be interesting. He makes me laugh. My favorite poem in this book is 'Ah, Women' - from which I quote often.
April 25, 2007
It's Rilke, so of course it's good. However, I didn't like the translation of these as much as others.
December 14, 2007
Probably my favorite book of poetry.
June 3, 2009
I have to return this to the library, since I've had it for almost 4 months. (love how the NYPL only makes you return books if someone else wants it)
March 25, 2010
Surprisingly, Rilke's uncollected poems made up the largest part of his work and they were the most specific, the most focused of his poems. I took great pleasure in reading them.
October 9, 2009
I LOVED THIS COLLECTION!
PAPER THE WALLS WITH THEM...
PAPER THE WALLS WITH THEM...
March 4, 2010
beautiful. absolutely beautiful.
June 3, 2024
Not my fav Rilke but still transcendent
January 25, 2024
Come, you last thing, which I acknowledge,
unholy agony in the fleshly weave;
just as I burned in spirit, look, I burn
in you;
Rilke has saved me more times than I can count. Every time I want to un-kill myself, I turn to Rilke. This book is no different. I was a little hesitant coming into it as I had my doubts about Edward Snow's translations but I am happily surprised with the level of beauty achieved. I could flip to any page in this book and find something I love. At first, I was restraining myself from underlining passes because I'd end up underlining the entire book; later on I realized that was stupid so I just ended up highlighting everything I love (hence, the entire book). There is a directness and brazenness in Rilke's voice here. Unlike in the Duino Elegies (and the other works I've read), wherein he submits to the divinity of his vision and poetry, he takes command of the fragmentary nature of the Uncollected Poems. There are recurring motifs that I could recognize as the seeds for Rilke's later magnum opus, though these poems are no less. My particular favorite is his thoughts on circles, and how he uses them as an analogy for the wholeness of humans. As Snow mentions in his introduction, this is a collection of foils in motif and style. It is loosely meandering yet firm and direct. It is beautiful and gentle yet as alarming as cold water.
unholy agony in the fleshly weave;
just as I burned in spirit, look, I burn
in you;
Rilke has saved me more times than I can count. Every time I want to un-kill myself, I turn to Rilke. This book is no different. I was a little hesitant coming into it as I had my doubts about Edward Snow's translations but I am happily surprised with the level of beauty achieved. I could flip to any page in this book and find something I love. At first, I was restraining myself from underlining passes because I'd end up underlining the entire book; later on I realized that was stupid so I just ended up highlighting everything I love (hence, the entire book). There is a directness and brazenness in Rilke's voice here. Unlike in the Duino Elegies (and the other works I've read), wherein he submits to the divinity of his vision and poetry, he takes command of the fragmentary nature of the Uncollected Poems. There are recurring motifs that I could recognize as the seeds for Rilke's later magnum opus, though these poems are no less. My particular favorite is his thoughts on circles, and how he uses them as an analogy for the wholeness of humans. As Snow mentions in his introduction, this is a collection of foils in motif and style. It is loosely meandering yet firm and direct. It is beautiful and gentle yet as alarming as cold water.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2021
Here, more so than in the
Duino Elegies
or
Sonnets to Orpheus,
do I find the Rilke that I love: brief pieces of verse that are part philosophical observation -- almost aphoristic in nature -- and part aesthetic meditation on the sublime. When Rilke is in top form, his verse is the bridge between 19th century German Romanticism and 20th century modernism. It is the merging of the outer sanctum of Nature with the inner mystery of the human psyche.
As such, I loved reading these in the last week when the late spring/early summer weather was perfect, sitting near a pond in a local park and watching the light shimmer through the leaves and onto the rippling water. I read these poems slowly, sometimes multiple times, as they are intended to be read at a relaxed, contemplative pace. Edward Snow’s translations match Rilke’s passion and linguistic verve, and he remains my favorite translator of Rilke’s work.
As such, I loved reading these in the last week when the late spring/early summer weather was perfect, sitting near a pond in a local park and watching the light shimmer through the leaves and onto the rippling water. I read these poems slowly, sometimes multiple times, as they are intended to be read at a relaxed, contemplative pace. Edward Snow’s translations match Rilke’s passion and linguistic verve, and he remains my favorite translator of Rilke’s work.
September 1, 2024
Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne,
heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb:
wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne
in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt,
der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen,
nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir.
Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen
ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier.
Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg
ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen,
so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen
um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg.
Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt?
Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein.
O Leben, Leben: Draußensein.
Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kenn
[Verzicht. Das ist nicht so wie Krankheit war
einst in der Kinderheit. Aufschub. Vorwand um
größer zu werden. Alles rief und raunte.
Misch nicht in dieses was dich früh erstaunte]
heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb:
wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne
in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt,
der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen,
nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir.
Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen
ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier.
Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg
ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen,
so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen
um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg.
Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt?
Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein.
O Leben, Leben: Draußensein.
Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kenn
[Verzicht. Das ist nicht so wie Krankheit war
einst in der Kinderheit. Aufschub. Vorwand um
größer zu werden. Alles rief und raunte.
Misch nicht in dieses was dich früh erstaunte]
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews