Joseph Stroud

When I Go

Arts & Literature

“Near the end of his life, and after the crowning achievements of the Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus, Rainer Maria Rilke began writing poems in French, hundreds of them, and in these astonishing translations by Susanne Petermann we have almost a new Rilke, a poet enticed by the textures and nuances of the French language to explore new tones . . . Susanne Petermann has rendered Rilke’s French into a supple and finely tuned English that captures the freshness and lucidity of Rilke’s vision. This is an essential book for all readers of Rainer Maria Rilke.”