The painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke first met at the Worpswede artists’ colony in 1900—a focal point of the kind of artistic innovations that were set to transform twentieth-century European culture. Modersohn-Becker and Rilke went on to enjoy an intense friendship over a period that saw both of them having to confront personal and financial challenges as they pursued their artistic vocations. This friendship was cut short by Modersohn-Becker’s tragically early death in 1907, but it left in its wake a remarkable series of letters. As fascinating and evocative when discussing the nature of married life and the difficulty of furnishing one’s home as they are when exploring the expressive possibilities of art and poetry, the letters exchanged by Modersohn-Becker and Rilke are a testament to both writers’ exceptional descriptive gifts and penetrating social intelligence. Brought together here in English for the first time and introduced by an illuminating essay by the art historian Jill Lloyd, The Modersohn-Becker/Rilke Correspondence provides a fascinating view of everyday life during an exceptionally fertile and exciting period of cultural production.

"In 1908, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote his "Requiem for a Friend" in memory of Paula Modersohn-Becker, the German painter who had had a profound effect on him, both personally and artistically, and who had died a year earlier. Modersohn-Becker, despite being one of the great modern painters, is today remembered primarily as she is portrayed in that poem. In Dear Friend, Eric Torgersen looks at the relationship of these two great artists whose vexed seven-year friendship was extraordinarily productive for both, and offers an introduction to the life and work of Modersohn-Becker, a gifted and determined woman whose work stands comparison with that of any painter of her day." "Included in the book are sixteen illustrations as well as new translations by Torgersen of Rilke's "Requiem for a Friend" and of the love poems Rilke wrote for Becker shortly after they met. Torgersen discusses Modersohn-Becker's vital paintings, including her unfinished portrait of Rilke. He quotes extensively from the letters and journals of both figures, translating many of Rilke's into English for the first time. Finally, Torgersen addresses the unanswered question of whether the two were ever lovers, and offers new insights into Rilke's writing of "Requiem for a Friend.""--Jacket.

Recognized today as one of the great modernist painters, Paula Modersohn-Becker was also a gifted writer, and her large body of letters and journals represent the story of her life. This volume presents the journals and every extant letter, each carefully annotated.

‘A luminous tale about the courage of the lone female artist.’ Joan London Born in Germany in 1876, Paula Modersohn-Becker was the first female artist to paint herself not only naked but pregnant. Being Here is a moving account of the life of this ground-breaking Expressionist painter, by the acclaimed French writer Marie Darrieussecq. As her art evolves, Paula is torn between Paris and her home in northern Germany. In Paris she can focus on her work, and mix with artists like Rodin and Monet, or her close friend the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. But Germany is home, and that’s where her painter husband Otto lives. Darrieussecq thrillingly describes Paula’s discovery of her style and choice of subjects—women, babies, domestic life. She tells the story of her fraught marriage, her ambivalence about combining her passion for her career as an artist with motherhood. And she recounts her tragic death at thirty-one, days after giving birth. Marie Darrieussecq was born in Bayonne in 1969 and and is recognized as one of the leading voices of contemporary French literature. Her first novel, Pig Tales, was translated into thirty-five languages. In 2013 she was awarded the Prix Médicis and the Prix des Prix. Text publishes her three most recent novels, Tom Is Dead, All the Way and Men, as well as Being Here, The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker. ‘Marie Darrieussecq reads the testament of Modersohn-Becker—the letters, the diaries, and above all the paintings—with a burning intelligence and a fierce hold on what it meant and means to be a woman and an artist.’ J.M. Coetzee ‘There are few writers who may have changed my perception of the world, but Darrieussecq is one of them.’ The Times ‘The internationally celebrated author who illuminates those parts of life other writers cannot or do not want to reach.’ Independent ‘Penny Hueston’s translation from the original French, reads strangely—and in a good way—like true crime...Heartbreaking.’ West Australian ‘A brief, powerful artistic life that went painfully unrewarded—until after the painter’s death.’ Julian Barnes, Best Summer Holiday Reads, Guardian [UK] ‘Darrieussecq has written this painful story because of her own sorrow at not knowing Paula Modersohn-Becker and of not knowing of her; sorrow, too, at her early death and truncated creativity. Darrieussecq looks squarely at a subject that is often too brutal to explore.’ Monthly ‘Lyrical and touching... Blending historical fact with imaginative flair, Darrieussecq brings her figures to life, imbuing them with emotion, character, and power...Being Here feels almost effortlessly beautiful, a short work of non-fiction told like a flowing piece of fictional prose.’ AU Review ‘Translated elegantly by Penny Hueston, the study retains some of the spacious, if not capacious quality of the French language and its ability to articulate the phenomena of presence and absence—the continued aliveness of the paintings and the sad and sudden death of the painter.’ Conversation ‘In Darrieussecq’s hands, Modersohn-Becker’s story is both individual and exemplary: a frightening, energising fable’ Guardian ‘Darrieussecq animates the short life of a passionate German artist with vivid, spare prose...This taut biography, written in the present tense, has the urgency and poignancy of the best novels.’ Suzy Freeman-Greene, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review ‘One of those books that catches you by surprise, Being Here is art history that feels like a beautifully crafted novel...It’s effortlessly beautiful, and highlights the ever more important need to tell the stories of women in art.’ AU Review, Top Ten Books of 2017

An anthology of Rilke's strongest poetry and prose for both aficionados and new readers. Here is a mini-anthology of poetry and prose for both aficionados and those readers discovering Rainer Maria Rilke for the first time. John J. L. Mood has assembled a collection of Rilke's strongest work, presenting commentary along with the selections. Mood links into an essay passages from letters that show Rilke's profound understanding of men and women and his ardent spirituality, rooted in the senses. Combining passion and sensitivity, the poems on love presented here are often not only sensual but sexual as well. Others pursue perennial themes in his work—death and life, growth and transformation. The book concludes with Rilke's reflections on wisdom and openness to experience, on grasping what is most difficult and turning what is most alien into that which we can most trust.

Possibility of Being is a selection of poems by one of the most moving and original writers of this century, Rainer Maria Rilke (1857-l926). The title (taken from one of the Sonnets to Orpheus, ''Ibis is the Creature") reflects the central concern of both Rilke's life and art: the achievement of "being," which this most spiritual yet least doctrinaire of modern German poets defined as "the experiencing of the completest possible inner intensity.''

A fresh perspective on a beloved classic by acclaimed translators Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1875–1926) Letters to a Young Poet has been treasured by readers for nearly a century. Rilke’s personal reflections on the vocation of writing and the experience of living urge an aspiring poet to look inward, while also offering sage wisdom on further issues including gender, solitude, and romantic love. Barrows and Macy’s translation extends this compilation of timeless advice and wisdom to a fresh generation of readers. With a new introduction and commentary, this edition places the letters in the context of today’s world and the unique challenges we face when seeking authenticity.

DIVA major new look at the life and career of a pioneering woman artist/div

Winner of the 2016 Marfield Prize In 1902, Rainer Maria Rilke—then a struggling poet in Germany—went to Paris to research and write a short book about the sculptor Auguste Rodin. The two were almost polar opposites: Rilke in his twenties, delicate and unknown; Rodin in his sixties, carnal and revered. Yet they fell into an instantaneous friendship. Transporting readers to early twentieth-century Paris, Rachel Corbett’s You Must Change Your Life is a vibrant portrait of Rilke and Rodin and their circle, revealing how deeply Rodin’s ideas about art and creativity influenced Rilke’s classic Letters to a Young Poet.

Edward Snow's selection of more than one hundred of Rainer Maria Rilke's little-known and neglected poems in this bilingual edition offers the reader a glimpse into one of the most powerful and underrated accomplishments in all of modern poetry. The poems in Uncollected Poems reveal a freer, more dangerous, less self-fashioning Rilke than the poet of the Elegies and the Sonnets; and Snow's translations of them, while always scrupulously faithful to the German, bring Rilke's power and music into English with unmatched grace and intelligence.