The Poet's Guide to Life

Advance praise for The Poet’s Guide to Life

“Most Western wisdom writers exalt renunciation rather than desire. Rilke is almost Asian in his differences from Goethe, Nietzsche, Freud. For him, eros is not the wisdom of fools and the folly of the wise. Nor does he, like Plato’s Socrates, climb the ladder of love toward the Good. Ulrich Baer uniquely makes available Rilke’s bittersweet apprehensions of the objective realities-of-desire, and of the consequent, triumphantly knowing poetics-of-loss.”
–Harold Bloom, author of Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? and The Western Canon

“Rilke longed to be a worker, and in one autobiographical poem he described his face as that of someone who serves. Like Dante he believed that love is the animating force in the universe–though Rilke’s quest took him, not toward the stars, but back to the earth, to the unnoticed miracle of things precisely as they are. Professor Baer’s book is the best of its kind I have ever encountered. It is clearly and elegantly translated and arranged, an inspired gift to a world in terrible need of Rilke’s grave and joyful vision.”
–Franz Wright, author of Walking to Martha’s Vineyard, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry

“This thematic selection from the vast trove of Rilke’s letters and papers reveals an unfamiliar side of the poet that broadens and deepens the range of his thought. Professor Baer’s translations are eloquent, and his splendid Introduction is sensitive, thorough, and illuminating.”
–Burton Pike, professor emeritus of comparative literature at City University of New York, and award-winning translator

“Boy, Rilke is a kook. Reading The Poet’s Guide to Life, I have to say that I love his point of view.”
–Gus Van Sant, director of Good Will Hunting, My Own Private Idaho, and many other films