The essential Rilke

dont think i can rate this. there were some hits but i want to explore different collections and translations bc i didnt love this but i think i could love different bits of rilkes work more

Rilke has a gift for capturing the beauty of solitude. His poetry is melancholy, filled with longing, but never depressing.

Favorites from this collection:

Evening

Autumn

Silent Hour

Solitude

The Neighbour

Maidens I

Moonlight Night

In April

Death

Lament

Symbols

Growing Blind

Love Song

The Book Of A Monk's Life

I think this may have been my third time reading this book cover to cover. Honestly, I read it in spots constantly. I carry it with me everywhere, like Linus with his blanket. Whether it gives good luck or simply makes me feel safe, I'm not sure.
Rainer Maria Rilke is one of the few people that I can say is my favorite artist. You will never get my favorite movie, or book, or painting, or song, because they change constantly and I am never able to think of any single one as more meaningful than another. I love them all.
But Rilke holds this special place as my “favorite” poet. In the words of Marina Tsvetaeva, writing to Rilke on his deathbed in 1926: “You are not the poet I love most. ‘Most' already implies comparison. You are poetry itself.” I am inclined towards those sentiments. Rilke is the poet that spoke to the lost, confused, endlessly yearning child within me that was drawn towards beauty and the infinite without the slightest hint as to why. He helped me find where to step when I started down a hidden path that no one among my family or friends knew. He taught me that writing could be precisely what it wanted to be, and all that I had to do was listen. Listen and gather the world inside of myself and transform every Thing that I could carry. Do that, and perhaps there will be a few lines to show for it. Even if there aren't, life will become incredibly beautiful, and that was reason enough for me. Rilke taught me how to love myself, even though the wiring of my brain places me on the autism spectrum and has caused me more than a little trouble and alienation throughout my life. Rilke spoke to me as someone who understood, and could teach me to understand. This man's work is my life, not in the sense of obsession or possession, but in the sense that it is a part of me just as the hair on my head, or the shape of my nose.
I first read Letters to a Young Poet, over and over. That was how I found out about Rilke. When I decided I wanted to read his poetry, not just read him writing about poetry, I found this book. It changed my life, and I keep it with me wherever I go now.

3.5 stars.

Rating would probably have been higher if I had given myself time to savor instead of rushing through. I plan to re-read eventually.

[You who never arrived] is the entire reason I read the collection, and still one of my all-time favorites.

This didn't slap me in the face the way Howl did, though it came pretty close. The mood seemed a combination of Rumi's slightly self-indulgent squishy softness (forgive the alliteration), with Schopenhauer's angry 19th century Germanic interpretation of Buddhism (WOE UNTO US ALL). I loved Rilke's use of natural imagery - trees growing out of ears, girls sleeping in ears, actually, I guess it was mostly ear stuff - and some of the poems really blow your socks off. The intro, also, was a treat; it made me hungry to take a MOOC on Rilke! Does such a MOOC exist!?!