Description
2025 marks the 150th anniversary of Rilke’s birth (1875–1926). Already a bestselling poet and writer during his lifetime, his influence has grown steadily over the century since his death. Many readers will remember the revelation of discovering his Letters to a Young Poet in which he famously advised us not to seek answers but rather to “live the questions.” His poems—from his early Book of Hours (1905) to his last two collections, The Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies (1923)—do just this: they invite us to live into what he described as “the Open.” To embrace the intimate gifts of the “here-and-now.” To cherish the small mysteries that are always close to hand. And to discover how we belong to what he came to call “the Whole.” Join us to explore a selection of Rilke’s poems and writings with the award-winning translator, poet, and Rilke scholar Mark S. Burrows, professor emeritus of the University of Applied Sciences in Bochum, Germany. He will gladly sign copies of his new books: Sonnets to Orpheus: A New Translation and You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke, both published in 2024.
Mark S. Burrows is a poet, scholar, and teacher who has spent much of his life translating and interpreting Rilke’s poetry. His recent publications include an award-winning collection of poems inspired by the German mystic, Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light (2023) and the first collection (in a bilingual German/ English edition) of poems by the celebrated German-Jewish poet Hilde Domin, The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin (2023). Alongside his prize-winning translation of one of Rilke’s early works, Prayers of a Young Poet (later included as the opening section in The Book of Hours) is his new translation of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus (2024). In October, 2024, he published a book (co-authored with Stephanie Dowrick) shaped by Rilke’s wisdom, You Are the Future: Living Your Deepest Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke. He lives and writes in Camden, ME. www.soul- in-sight.org
