Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke

Dr. Christophe Fricker, poet and translator, Associate Professor of German and Translation, University of Bristol

We always need more Rilke translations to keep this astonishing poet alive. Donald Mace Williams’ work isn’t just another Rilke translation though. It is confident in its own voice, almost hauntingly poignant at times, and of an eloquence that rivals Rilke’s own, without ever simply copying the original poet. It will speak to you and invite you to respond.

Professor George Kalogeris, Suffolk University, Boston, author of Winthropos: Poems

"The Girl Grown Up” is an exquisitely beautiful rendering of Rilke’s great poem. It gets both the meditative, calmly unfurling tonal profundity of Rilke’s thought while all the while maintaining the strict exigencies of the form, respectful of both the rhyme and the meter. . . . I love the unforced, utterly natural way that this rendering does what the best translations do: it reads like a poem in English.