Welcome to Litsy!

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesday @CBee

#doublespin I‘ve finished this volume and feel like I‘ve only just started it. It‘s one of those poetry collections that will take many readings to really unlock. Especially the first part — this is a 3 part collection consisting of Poems To Night (the title of a notebook of 22 poems Rilke gifted his friend and confidant writer Rudolph Kassner in 1916), drafts of these poems, and unconnected Rilke poems also on the theme of night.

📖12-19-22 || One of my 2022 reading goals was to expand my poetry horizons by reading a book of poetry each month. I missed two months this year so I‘m quickly catching up. I figured this is an appropriate choice as we approach the winter solstice. I can‘t say I “get” all of these but I do like Rilke and this is a very concise volume.

A moving and transcendent collection. I only wish I could read them in the original German. The above is my favorite of the collection.

Book 9 #winterreadathon

12 Days of Christmas (poetry) for #midwintersolsticegames

@AllDebooks is hosting #naturalitsy #midwintersoltice games, a low-key reading challenge.

I opted to have 1 book per category:
🌲 12 Days of Christmas (poetry) - Poems to Night
🌲 Winter Solstice (fiction) - Smooth As Silk
🌲 Mid-Winter (NF) - Quiet
🌲 Advent (short story or essay) - Celtic Fairy Tales

See Debbie‘s original post for the sign-up link.

I'm new to Rilke and this was a nice introduction. Some of it felt above my head, and all of it would likely benefit from a reread, but I'm glad I read it. It's not the ode to night I had hoped for, but the religious imagery didn't push me away as it often does. The Pushkin Press printed copy is aesthetically pleasing too.

This is a short book. A 1/4 of it is an introduction into the creation, translation, & publication of this collection. The poems include drafts and fragments, all centered around the theme of night.

I admit that I don‘t always get the meanings of his poems, but I still appreciate the artistry. I find specific lines/phrases that I feel a connection to, but it‘s like picking out grains of sand from a beach too vast for me to fully grasp. 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Thanks Netgalley for this ARC!

I wanted to like it and pretend I'm super fancy and get this sort of poetry but honestly this was really bad. Maybe the original writing great and it's just the translation that absolutely ridiculous (maybe some things aren't meant to be translated).

One reviewer on NetGalley called this "interminable dross" and that is absolutely the best way to describe this book.

#netgalley