Night, is too overpowering, there is a beauty to it, the darkness holds in it a plethora of secrets that equally entice and scare. While the poems are dedicated to Night, there is too much of Moon in this collection. If light be the identity of the Day, shouldn't darkness reign over the Night? There is an overall feeling of helplessness, and longing throughout, faint and vulnerable.

This is the first of Rilke's works that I read, so I am not sure if I started right. The poems are beautiful, the words rally one after the other effortlessly, flowing flawlessly, but then too much of distress, and worry, that brings down the positive emotions I felt. The blurb says the writings belong to a period that played a very important time in Rilke's development into a poet, and some poems are marked as drafts as well.

ARC ebook provided by Netgalley.

I had never heard of Rainer Maria Rilke before diving into this collection, but as this is the first time these poems have been translated to English, I was excited to see what Poems to Night had in store for me. Being an English graduate, I'm experienced in reading and analyzing older literature, so the fact that the poems are from the early 1900s didn't intimidate me at all. I love the intrigue, mystery, and aesthetic of the night, so a collection devoted to that seemed right up my alley.

The collection starts off with an introduction that is entirely too long, rambly, and boring. I ended up skipping that latter half of it after trying to force myself through it for far too long. Unfortunately, that rambly introduction sets the tone for the rest of the collection. As I don't speak/read German or French, I have no way of knowing if the fault lies with Rainer himself or the translations, but these poems felt more like verbose gibberish of a person badly attempting to learn English than the translated words of a world-renowned poet. I literally couldn't tell you what any of these poems are supposed to be about, and I have a degree in analyzing text.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It was very interesting because it was translated and had a good premise, I just did not enjoy it most likely because the work is so old. Thank you.

Name: Poems To Night
Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
Genre: Poetry
Rating: 4.3/5
Review:
Poems To Night is a beautiful collection of poetries. The poetries are written mostly in Paris, some talk about the city of love, while other poetries are about reminiscence, sentiments and love. These poetries are like strings of words woven together to form an emotion, a feeling of one own self.
I enjoyed reading these poetries, some touched me and some passed by me. This book reminded me of William Wordsworth poems, if you enjoy reading poetries, you should definitely read it!

This definitely isn't a book you can just breeze through. I found the poetry very beautiful, but you do have to take your time and really pay attention to what each poem is saying. It is very re-readable. This is one poetry book you should add to your collection.

I would like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing with an Advanced Reader Copy, in exchange for an honest review.

I've read Rilke's novel: "Letters to a young poet" and I found the collection lyrical and romantic, as the author advises a young poet. I expected to like this collection of poems by him but I found them too lyrical for my taste.
I think that they will be better appreciated by scholars and connoisseurs of this genre of poetry.

This just wasn't the book for me. It took me a while to read it because I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't really enjoy reading it, but I hope other people will. Rating: 2/5 stars.

Before reading this, I was unsure if any meaning or emotions of the poems would be lost in translation. However, the collection previewed a compelling experience from start to finish. I found myself often comparing the text to the sky as I read at night. I definitely recommend this book for versed poets and newcomers alike. It was a simple yet wonderful read, and serves as a gateway to reading other German poetry.

I think this work was intriguing, especially since Rilke’s work hadn’t be translated to English before, however, I felt like this book just fell flat for me. I wanted to like it, I just felt really detached and unmoved.

The writing style presented in this collection was brilliant. The execution and some of the subject matter fell short. While some of these were downright fun to read and enjoyable, others felt flat and just incomplete.

I was not able to complete this collection.

The introduction was great and really caught my eye but the poems themselves I found were not really presenting the emotion that they were meant.

Before this, I'd never read any collections of Rilke's work. I'd seen poems one at a time and always enjoyed them. In this collection, we get a chance to read a number of her translated poems all at once.

In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented the writer Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems, meticulously copied out in his own hand, which bore the title "Poems to Night."
These have never before translated into English, this collection brings together all Rilke's significant night poems in one volume.

This work is beautiful and heartbreaking and touching. You can read this over time or all in one sitting and get something from it.

A beautifully written poem in its first English translation by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Not only does this contain the full work by Rainer, it is also rich in the history of the poet and the things that he was experiencing while writing this beautiful piece over the time of January 1913-February1914. It also contains a few more of the poets works that also associate with the night theme. If you enjoy poetry casually, like myself, this is a great read. Or if you are avid in the literary arts, this is also a great read, as it is full of rich history and the first ever English translation of this beautiful work.

Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague in 1875. He attended university in Prague and in Munich, switching majors from art history, literature and philosophy to political science, law and Darwinian theory. He published his first collection of poems in 1894. He suffered from a wonderful illness called “Fernweh” - he loved travelling. He crisscrossed the old world – from Germany to Russia and then to Spain, and from Italy to Egypt. The Great war meant that he had to join the war, and he did that as a clerk in the war archives in Vienna. During war, in 1916, Rilke gave a notebook of his poems revolving around night to his friend Rudolf Kassner. Rilke died of leukaemia in 1927, refusing all treatment and wanting to die “his own death.”

The collection “Poems to Night” offers all 22 poems from the notebook given to Kassner, but also includes sketches for poems and other completed poems with the same topic – the night.

Rilke here offers a collection of morsels for the soul. He doesn’t bother the reader with long verses, with complicated rhymes, with washed out epithets. He just gives the reader an insight into the connection a person has with their constant companion.

We have all felt the emotions he describes here, but, not being poets, we were unable to put them into words. Rilke then serves as a translator for those indescribable feelings.

He talks about love and our constant search for that something that keeps slipping from our grasp. We carry our thoughts and yearnings with us and we look for someone to offer them to, but sadly we carry them
…to the stranger, who misunderstood us,
alas to the other, whom we never found…

But even when we are feeling down and defeated, the night brings us recuperation, it sooths us and makes us stronger
When through the olive trees’ pale separation
the night made me stronger with stars…

We want to be seen and in the night, it seems like millions of stars are looking down on us, seeing us, “surveying us.” The night gives us courage to face being seen.

This whole collection of poems is the kind of book one should keep on one’s nightstand and turn to when the traffic din is down and all you can see through your window are the moon and the stars.

A wonderful book, a wonderful poet.

I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The imagery is beautiful in the book. Probably most recommended for fans of the writer though but wasn't for me.

This felt like coming home, made me long for the warm nights of summer where it wraps around me like an old friend. This collection of RIlke's poems are beautiful, but I found myself falling in love with the draft's from this collection.
I found so many lines that felt like they were in harmony with my own soul.

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 really means something and it's just the translation that absolutely ridiculous (maybe some things aren't meant to be translated).

The introduction was boring, heavy, and bored me so thoroughly that I almost went to sleep and I have insomnia people; that isn't easy to do. Had they brought the intro at the end to give some sort of context that would have worked better. When I was reading "If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho" translated by Anne Carson I read every footnote and explanation at the end, and then I went back to read the poetry. It's just this was not worth reading and the introduction was where that started.

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

I'm not terribly familiar with Rilke's work, but I enjoyed this collection focused on night, nature, and introspection. The introduction was a bit affected; in retrospect, I wish I had jumped past it to read the poems and interpret them for myself. It was also interesting to see some of Rilke's unfinished poetry toward the end of the collection.

I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley I’m exchange for an honest review.

Poems to Night is an interesting collection of Rilke’s poetry translated into English for the first time by Will Stone. The poems explore the relationship between humans and the night, which here often stands for the eternal and divine, at a time of many scientific advances and heavy industry.

Some of the poems spoke to me and some did not. Rilke’s imagery is beautiful, as is the sense of place found in the collection. I did feel like the poems blurred into one another somewhat, but that may be because I read the collection quite quickly.

I’d recommend this collection to fans of the poet and those interested in the themes described, though probably not to a wider audience.

I wanted to read Rilke's poems for a while and that book was the perfect chance. I really enjoyed it. I loved the night theme and it fits perfectly for what he wrote. I felt the loneliness and melancholy through his poems. Rilke's poetry was really gorgeous and I'll continue to read more of his poems in the future.