The Quiet Storms of Rainer Maria Rilke: 36 Poems

By Terrance Lane Millet

Rilke’s quiet poems contain exceptional pent-up energy that encompasses the immediacy, wonder, and breathlessness with which the poet experienced life. His unique, spiritual connection with the world, so easily lost in a formal or literal translation, is opened up in these fresh interpretations from Terrance Lane Millet. The English versions of Rilke’s poems are very loose translations from the German. An epiphany-like view of the world and the elements in it, more than the form of the poems themselves, seems to be the essence of Rilke. The poet is laid bare, and Millet’s fresh use of convention reveals Rilke’s openness to the mystery of experience. The poems in this collection explore Rilke’s sense that out of darkness may come light and wonder; from turbulence, peace and integration; and that understanding can come through embracing what we do not understand. A certain, indefinable something hovers just out of eyeshot, as the things we fear may be little more than unexplored aspects of ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jun 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781483499321

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Millet

Copyright © 2019 Terrance Lane Millet.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9933-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9932-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019903026

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 04/25/2019

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Johanna Kramer whose enthusiasm translating Rilke while we were students was infectious, and who guided my first forays into the German text.   To David Turkel, who read early drafts of some of these poems and offered his encouragement. And to Eric Hill, whose enthusiasm, conversation, and collaboration keep the creative flames burning.

A Note on The Translation

The English versions of these poems are very loose translations from the German.   I’ve attempted to convey the sense––the immediacy, the wonder, the breathlessness––that Rilke’s poems contain, his unique connection with the world, that can so easily be lost in a literal translation.   That epiphanic view of the world and the elements in it, more than the form of the poems themselves, seem to me to be the essence of Rilke, and I wanted to bring that to the surface.

For My Wife

Denise

Intrepid navigator of her own quiet storms

Our skins contain the knowledge of a hundred incarnations,

our thoughts, the record of the human race…

~ anonymous

Sturm

Wenn die Wolken,