RE: The Russians and Rilke [was Re: 1999 Nobel Prize in Literatur e:
Baader, Cecilia (cbaader@casecorp.com)
Thu, 21 Oct 1999 00:50:09 -0500
> Cecilia wrote:
>> "Last week she bought me a book of poetry by some unknown
>> Russian because
>> I'd rambled a bit one time about how I loved Rilke."
To which Bruce responded:
>
> Surely the Russian was *not* Tsvetaeva.
>
> Care to amplify re your love for Rilke?
>
No, Mom's unknown Russian was not Tsvetaeva. (And I'm missing the
connection, if one has been made before...) Rather, it was Khlebnikov.
Now, I'm afraid that the admission that my Russian was unknown to me until
now will probably draw scandalized breaths from bananafishes the world over.
I wouldn't be surprised if Scottie once had coffee with him in a cafe in St.
Petersburg, or if will is preparing to teach a class on him next semester,
or if Jim was considering covering the mathematical beauty of his poems in
his dissertation. Alas, no, I had not heard of him before now... but poems
like "Cracking the Universe" are pure beauty:
...My mind, precise to the nth degree,
like a heart of burning coal, I placed on
the tongue of the dead prophet of the universe...
Lovely. Now as to our man Rilke, the story behind my passion for him is
really an odyssey, begun several years ago. For when old Jerry slipped his
mention of "that bastard Rilke" into _Franny_, I put his name on a mental
list. (This list is long... I'm constantly finding books published by
people who have been on my mental list for years. That's pretty much why I
never walk out of a bookstore without making a purchase.) Anyway, with the
name Rilke knocking around at the back of mind, I came across a little tome
entitled _Letters to a Young Poet_. I read these letters greedily, then
read them again, then searched every anthology I had for his poetry. I
found one poem, in the thousands of pages of poems at my hands, and then the
search began in earnest. Internet searches yielded few fruits, and then one
day I found it: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by
Stephen Mitchell. Now I can't comment on how good or how bad Mitchell's
translation is, but I can say that the rest is history.
And now for my last confession. In a fit of love for the man, I transcribed
his letters and put them up on my, er, website. I'm no programmer and
you're not going to find any bells and whistles, but if you have ever been
curious about them, you can find them at:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/5596/rilke/rilke.htm
Regards,
Cecilia.
(It's probably not a coincidence that many of the stories in my life in some
way involve a bookstore of some sort.)