A Year with Rilke: Premonition

October 3, 2011

Premonition

A Wheatfield with Cypresses

by Vincent van Gogh

Like a flag, I am surrounded by distances.
I sense the winds that are coming
and must live them
while the things below do not yet stir.
Doors still close gently
and windows don't shake.
Ashes lie heavy on the hearth.

But I know about gales
and I shudder like the sea.
I unfurl myself and fold in again
and flail back and forth,
all alone in the great storm.

Book of Images

2 comments:

dsMon Oct 03, 06:16:00 AM GMT+2
How small we are.
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Ed PilollaTue Oct 04, 03:06:00 AM GMT+2
vincent's sky is so beautiful.
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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!

About the Blog

We, Lorenzo and Ruth, are blog friends who, upon discovering our shared admiration for Rainer Maria Rilke's writings in a new volume of daily readings, decided to launch this blog.

Lorenzo (in Spain) has a home blog called The Alchemist's Pillow. Ruth (in the U.S.) has a home blog called synch-ro-ni-zing. Both of us also write poems and receive inspiration from Mary Oliver, Rumi, and many other poets.

We hope you will be inspired by this site, and we'd love to hear your responses in comments.

The Challenge of Translation

How can a poem written by Rilke, or anyone, be translated into another language, when a poem by its nature is a snapshot of a feeling, idea or story that also sings in lyricism, cadence, rhyme (sometimes) and other nuances that contribute to the poem intrinsically?

C. John Holcombe has thoroughly and generously explored the "problems" of translation in an article linked here, in which he explores the poem Herbsttag by Rilke. You can read fourteen versions of the first stanza by different translators, as well as a revelation of the issues of translation: word choice when there is no perfect equivalent; diction; word order (maintain the original or rearrange for effect?); rhyme; balance; and looking at the context of the poet's previous work.