The Essential Rilke
Selected and Translated by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann

When my husband and I were in the diplomatic service, stationed in Germany, I struggled to learn German, and the first thing I read was Rilke. It couldn't have been more difficult. Rilke's poetry is hard to make sense of when you hardly know the language, but I got through two books in those early days. I was fascinated by Rilke and have since read many biographies of him. Kinnell is a very attractive fellow. He lives up in Vermont and I met him last summer. I was very interested to read his interpretation of the poet's work.