h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Posted: Friday 20 October 2006 11:47:24

Hi Carole

We are doing Rainer Maria Rilke at our poetry meeting next Tuesday, do you know anything about him? I don't.

I've found lots of his poems on the web but don't know which ones to go for without reading through them all.

Oh crikey. I have never heard of the chap, Andy. Completely new to me. Who chose his poetry? Why not reliable Davies or Arnold ?

I do hope that you find something decent by him. He sounds a bit new'ish. Nothing against new'ish poets except I find it hard to see much beauty in their works. But that is only my personal view. I will Google him later !

Posted: Friday 20 October 2006 15:59:11

Rilke 1875 - 1926, much more your sort of period! Maggie suggested him and she was having doubts about her choice last week. Saw Sandra at lunchtime concert and she is having difficulty finding anything. Told her there's loads on the web but she refuses to have a PC in the house!!

I have had a look in some of my modern anthologies but he isn't there! His period-1875-1926 is a bit late for me. But I shall keep looking in my modern stuff to see if he crops up.

I didn't think I wanted a mobile phone until I had one. I would be lost without it now. The same goes for the computer. I have had mine for almost 2 years now and love it, but don't understand it !! If Alex and Emma hadn't given me this one I might never have bothered. And just think, Andy, you might never have met me !! How could you have gone through life without getting to know a little about me?

A-hem. The, er, Seven Phallic Poems. Indeed!

...the soaring of a womb dazzling rocket...

'Nuff said!

Posted: Friday 20 October 2006 20:11:13

Ditto re computer/mobile

I first got a PC in July 2001 but before then I'd been determined not to get one, especially when I used to work with computers all day.

And I first got a mobile 2 years ago when I had to come home to ring my brother to say that the bus hadn't turned up so I would be late getting to the pub.

I've been winding Sandra up about getting a new mobile recently - it's a pink folding one which is definitely too young for her, she doesn't seem to have any justification for it.

Posted: Friday 20 October 2006 20:20:34

A-hem. The, er, Seven Phallic Poems. Indeed!

...the soaring of a womb dazzling rocket...

'Nuff said!

Don't know to what you are referring, haven't read any of the Rilke I've found yet. Perhaps Maggie is going to regret suggesting him.

This is one of his that I rather do like - FALL DAY

I have downloaded it for myself-for future use.

Posted: Friday 20 October 2006 20:37:19

I've found the Phallic poems - this line (amongst others) has definitely put me off:

The column in my genital-woodsite.

perhaps something has been lost in the translation!!!

Maggie and I went to a poetry event a couple of years ago which started with a few local poets reading their poems - and there was a bloke who stood up and read stuff like that Rilke. I had to try hard not to laugh - I really don't know how people can write anything like that.

I think he was trying to say "the worm in the compost".

I have noticed that unknown would-be poets very often resort to poetry of this kind! I wonder what Freud would have to say about it all (or the poets supressions/needs)!!! Surely one is supposed to laugh at it, isn't one??

I've just read the whole daft poem. And the line that comes before the one you quoted now makes sense of it all!

I was told earlier that I wasn't logged into h2g2. But I was!

Hey, maybe I should suggest RM Rilke for one of my poetry classes. It will certainly liven up all the older members.

Posted: Friday 20 October 2006 21:12:15

I doubt that Rilke intended you to laugh at his poems - he presumably thought he was writing about something special. I must take them along on Tuesday.

I think it's very difficult to write poetry about sex without being ridiculous - love however is an entirely different matter.

Posted: Friday 20 October 2006 21:24:57

>>It will certainly liven up all the older members.

Just what are you suggesting?

Oh HA HA. What a bloomer ! And what a monstrous thought.

Posted: Saturday 21 October 2006 22:25:12

Lots of Rilke tonight:

at the BCMG concert there was a new vocal piece by Oliver Knussen written in memory of his wife and it finished with an short excerpt from Requiem for a Friend by RMR

then:

as I was coming home in the van, had the Verb on and there was "the poet Don Paterson, whose latest collection is a reworking of the Sonnets to Orpheus, written at the turn of the last century by the great German poet Rilke. In an astoundingly short thirteen days Rilke produced a beguiling collection of poems which stand as a landmark in modern poetry. Don Paterson explains how the desire to memorise the sonnets and carry them with him in his head drove him to compose a new edition, and why he thinks Rilke's madness was also his genius."

Is this all coincidence or not?

Well this is all just too much in one day. One minute I have never heard of him and then he is everywhere !!

And trying to memorise all that stuff that he wrote? It would drive anyone crackers. Especially the, um, undertones of what I HAVE read of his!!! I can't say that I have taken to his form of poetry, but if he ever turns up in a quiz, I shall be the first to answer I expect. His is a name I shall not forget.