Shortly after the publication of Stangers to Their Courage, Pleasure Boat Studio of New York City released a dozen of my translations from the German poet, Rainer Rilke. I had begun the project to fulfill requirements for my M.F.A., and having fallen in love with a poet who used German like music, I continued until the pressures of teaching and motherhood stopped me. I hope in retirement to turn again to Rilke. How often he has been translated; how we are still in dire need of more. My non-German-speaking friends still say to me, “Now what’s the big deal about Rilke? I just can’t see it.”

Praise for these translations

“Alice Derry’s renditions of Rilke’s short but difficult New Poems have an ease that comes only from living with the originals for a long time and letting them blossom from within.” —Gary Miranda

“Fluent in German and herself a fine poet, Derry enables us to experience Rilke’s world in its shimmering dualities.” —Charlotte Warren

Cover Art

Cover art is a watercolor painting by my daughter, Lisel Murdock

Availability

Available from Pleasure Boat Studio; autographed copy from the author: $10.00

Excerpts from Translations of Rainer Rilke’s New Poems

“Archaischer Torso Apollos

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn das ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.
—Rainer Rilke

“Archaic Torso of Apollo”

We never knew the astonishing head
in which his eyes mellowed. His torso, though
is glowing still, like a dimmed chandelier,
so that his gaze, merely lessened, endures,

shines on. Otherwise the arc of the chest
couldn’t dazzle you nor could a smile
drift from the light twist of the loins
to the center which carried creation.

Otherwise this stone would stand distorted,
abrupt, beneath the shoulders’ transparent plunge,
and wouldn’t glisten like a wild beast’s pelt;

and wouldn’t break from its boundaries
like a star: for there is no place here
which doesn’t see you. You must change your life.