One of the tragedies of being raised and / or educated in England is our general ignorance of German culture. The back cover tells us Rilke is one of the leading poets of European modernism and one of the greatest lyric poets of the Twentieth Century. Rilke at the moment has the benefit that one of the world's largest pop stars (Lady Gaga) has a quote from his book 'Letters to a Young Poet' as a tattoo.

 

This book contains the full text of the Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus, and selected poems from The Book of Images, New Poems, and earlier volumes, and from the uncollected poetry of 1906-26. The book also contains a useful & comprehensive introduction as well as explanatory notes.

 

These are not poems that immediately 'lept off the page' to me (maybe they would if I could read the original German text published in parallel) but have a silent, other-worldy power to this reader (another translation of one of the poems in this book can be found here: http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/transAdapt/poetryRilkeExcerpt.html ). It may appeal to people interested in poems about poetry, poesis and poetology. Copyright free translations of his work can be found on the net e.g. http://www.poemhunter.com/rainer-maria-rilke/poems/ .