Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to GodA FINALIST FOR THE PEN/WEST TRANSLATION AWARD The 100th Anniversary Edition of a global classic, containing beautiful translations along with the original German text. While visiting Russia in his twenties, Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, was moved by a spirituality he encountered there. Inspired, Rilke returned to Germany and put down on paper what he felt were spontaneously received prayers. Rilke's Book of Hours is the invigorating vision of spiritual practice for the secular world, and a work that seems remarkably prescient today, one hundred years after it was written. Rilke's Book of Hours shares with the reader a new kind of intimacy with God, or the divine—a reciprocal relationship between the divine and the ordinary in which God needs us as much as we need God. Rilke influenced generations of writers with his Letters to a Young Poet, and now Rilke's Book of Hours tells us that our role in the world is to love it and thereby love God into being. These fresh translations rendered by Joanna Macy, a mystic and spiritual teacher, and Anita Barrows, a skilled poet, capture Rilke's spirit as no one has done before. |
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Common terms and phrases
already alten Armen become began Bild Book of Hours bring brought cities dark darkness death deep Dinge dunkel earth everything face fallen father fear feel fremden gehn geht German give Gott große hands hear heart images jetzt Kind kleine later leaves Leben leise letters Liebe lines lives living look lost meaning mind move Nacht never night once original poems poet poetry poor poverty Reiche Rilke Rilke’s schwer sense Sinne sometimes speak Städte strange suffering Tage things thought tief translated vielen voice weiß Welt wieder wind words write wrote young