Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke: A 150th Anniversary Reader

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote many short lyric poems of remarkable beauty and intensity. In honor of Rilke’s 150th birthday, Donald Mace Williams has selected some of the best and brought these works of one of the 20th century’s most influential poets to English-speaking audiences. Williams’s translations capture the eloquence and character of Rilke’s own words while preserving the metrical verse of the original poems, which are presented side-by-side with the English translations. Williams’s translation of ＂The Girl Grown Up,＂ included in this collection, was selected as the winner of the 2024 Der Hovanessian Translation Prize by the New England Poetry Club.

DONALD MACE WILLIAMS is a former writing coach for The Wichita Eagle and reporter and editor for papers that include Newsday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Amarillo Globe-News. He has taught English and journalism at West Texas State and Baylor Universities. Williams holds a doctorate in English from the University of Texas. He lives in Austin, Texas, and his poetry has been published widely in journals in the U.S. and was collected in The Nectar Dancer. He is the author of Interlude in Umbarger: Italian POWs and a Texas Church, and the novels Black Tuesday’s Child and The Sparrow and the Hall. His epic poem Wolfe and his memoir Being Ninety were published as a single edition in February 2023 and his translation Beowulf: For Fireside and Schoolroom was published in 2024.