Donald Mace Williams

This new translation of the oldest narrative poem in English—the first in more than twenty years—is designed for easy, pleasant reading. It cuts the scholarly touches to a minimum, using simple margin notes to explain some word or phrase. With students, young readers, and Beowulf fans in mind, Donald Mace Williams has approached his translation as both a published writer of modern metrical poems and a scholar in the verse structure of Beowulf.

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote many short lyric poems of remarkable beauty and intensity. Donald Mace Williams has selected some of the best and brought these works of one of the 20th century’s most influential poet to English-speaking audiences.

These sixty-one poems, only a few of which are longer than a page, have the clarity and terseness that newspaper reporters strive for. No wonder—Donald Mace Williams spent most of his long adulthood as a newspaper writer and editor. They are his observations, full of joy and sadness, about life, loss, and nature.

In this epic re-release, Donald Mace Williams adapts Beowulf to late nineteenth-century Texas in Wolfe. In Being Ninety, he reflects on more than nine decades of devotion to the writing life.