Letters to a Young Poet

A New Translation and Commentary

De: Rainer Maria Rilke, Anita Barrows - translator, Joanna Macy - translator

Narrado por: Trevor White

A fresh perspective on a beloved classic by acclaimed translators Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.

German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1875-1926) Letters to a Young Poet has been treasured for nearly a century. Rilke’s personal reflections on the vocation of writing and the experience of living urge an aspiring poet to look inward, while also offering sage wisdom on further issues including gender, solitude, and romantic love. Barrows and Macy’s translation extends this compilation of timeless advice and wisdom to a fresh generation of readers and listeners. With a new introduction and commentary, this edition places the letters in the context of today’s world and the unique challenges we face when seeking authenticity.

©2021 Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (P)2021 Shambhala Publications

The point of life is to enjoy it

I enjoyed the student and teacher relationship between the two in their correspondence. Instead of a review of the work, it was a life lesson. Go within to find inspiration which is the core for most classic stories we all love today.

Excellent translation and performance

I’ve loved Macy and Barrows’ translations of Rilke’s Book of Hours. Their translations are stunning, and true to the original while being free enough to capture the essence without being bogged down by an over commitment to literal translation. In this book, I feel they capture the spirit of what Rilke is trying to convey.

The text itself is indispensable for anyone on an artistic path. The advice that Rilke offers (at the young age of 27!) is as wise and poignant as his poems. I will buy a physical copy of the book at re read it often.

The narrator is superb - I couldn’t have been happier with the narration!

A Letter I Didn’t Mean to Send (But Here We Are)

Rilke’s short book arrives like a friend who shows up to your kitchen at midnight with a bottle of good bourbon and a single, unbearably true question: are you paying attention to the life you’re living? He says it gently, insistently, in that way that makes you feel irritated and unhinged at the same time.

This isn’t a how-to manual. It’s an invitation that’s emotionally honest. He tells the young poet to love what he is doing so fiercely that the world cannot distract him; to stand in silence long enough that the soul has room to speak. It’s the sort of counsel delivered as a slap and a hug simultaneously.

Now for the part you didn’t expect from a book review: the part meant to be read in a low voice while you sip that bourbon that will make you a little more honest and a little less dull. If you, like me, show up to life half-armored, hiding behind competence as a form of safety, Rilke makes room for the messy, frustrated parts of us. He’s implicitly saying: “You can keep your game face on, but stop pretending you don’t want to have a little fun.”

This book will not make you less composed. Read it and you will still be a person who pays bills, shows up to meetings, and engages in small talk. You will, if anything, be a more interesting person to have at dinner parties. I promise, with the calm of someone who has mastered plausible deniability as if it was an olympic sport: I will keep my shit together.

And then, I’ll pretend I don’t give a shit if it makes you more comfortable. Because part of practicing love and attention - and Rilke knows this - is learning who you are beneath your polished exterior. You can wear your armor, you can fake your disinterest. You can also, in the privacy of a paragraph or a midnight walk, be unpracticed, loud, hungry, terrified, tender. That’s where life moves.

If you want a work-appropriate takeaway: Rilke is a small book that inculcates a big practice. Read it slowly. Re-read passages until they feel like prayer or practical instruction (they’re both). Keep it on your bedside table and your desk, where the private and the professional meet and sometimes get into a good argument.

If you want the other take - the one we’ll keep for ourselves - here it is: read this book, then go do something that scares you a little. Tell someone the truth you usually don’t even admit to yourself. Stop being so efficient for one afternoon. Be gloriously inconvenient to your plans. Let something loosen. That, to me, is the best possible form of bravery.

Highly recommended for the disciplined souls who secretly want to escape the insanity. Read it and then, for God’s sake, go be more alive.

First time reading Rilke

Grateful for this translation, it’s delivery and overall message was greatly needed at this time of my life. Much gratitude to the translators in making it available to me.

enlightening

Rilke's notion of God is wonderfully original and moving. That's the pearl of this little book. I will definitely relisten!

definitely a book that should be experienced

I can see why Whoopi Goldberg suggests this read.

she is referenced it time and time again and I just had to experience this for myself.

I think that it's definitely something that everybody should experience at least once in their life.

a must read

Wonderful!

Love this so much. The translation and narration were good. Rilke’s letters and poems are truly timeless.

Shame that whole passages are cut out

It’s unfortunate that the translators did not merely translate but edited passages because they felt that it might convey the wrong message. They express the sentiment that Rilke would agree with their editing because he didn’t have a backspace key. But given that he spent quite a lot of time thinking over the previous letter before responding, it seems to me he very much meant what he wrote. And in the end, none of what they cut out was damning in the least.

There’s a bit of irony in censoring a writer and not allowing readers to form their own opinions in the name of protecting journalistic integrity.

With that said, Rilke still stands out despite the unnecessary edits. This was my first time reading any of his works and I already have a few nuggets to stew on.

Watch out

This book has been terribly edited. Huge parts of it are missing, apparently because of censorship.

An old fave, BUTCHERED

Rilke's letters are censored! Entire chunks of text have been REMOVED because biological sex is considered offensive! Awful. Unbelievable.