Reading Rilke Aloud in an Empty House

Love the last stanza! ***

Good piece. Agree with Jake. Especially like the closing stanza. *

I enjoyed this immensely.

(personally, I'd lose the last stanza...for the sake of the poem AND the stanza...seems to go against the tone of the preceding...perhaps use it as its own free-standing piece...I think it deserves that)

"Reading them, I, too,

feel almost abloom, extending myself

in illuminated radius: weeping for the dead.{

Illuminated radius. I'll fave that.

That IS really good, isn't it?

I think the first three stanzas are...

...as has been commonly tossed about here though no one but Hemingway actually has the rights-to-usage of the phrase unless one wants to be perceived as a Hemingway-wannabe...

fine work indeed.

Yes - JB if this were your poem, I feel your necessity would be to cut cut the final stanza - it would fit with your voice to do that. Some readers, myself being one of them, view the final stanza as a natural progression for this poem.

"in illuminated radius: weeping for the dead" is the strongest line in the poem - and is where I too would end the poem, but I think the present stanza - a room of mirrors - as in Lady from Shanghai ... I don't want Hemingway to feel lonely...

I think the natural flatness of the phrasing - "You make me feel what Rilke felt / when Rilke wrote what I read" - harmonizes with "Do I want you to think of me as some mad genius, / yet refined and romantic?" and "How many times do flowers appear in that? / Many, many times." That's a justification for keeping the closing stanza.

And I agree. The IS a good piece.

Didn't finish my thought -- I think the present (closing) stanza works for the poem.

I think the final stanza is BRILLIANT.

But...

(dang it)

just not HERE.

(and though P. chooses not to interact with us, for the most part, I must say his writing has climbed up a notch, of late (his last piece & this).

Though an aggravating friction-causer, posting on Fnaut DOES, over time, improve one's writing.

I like the way this poem moves, beginning with a personal closeness -- the small world of her desk, her room, her readings -- then expanding out toward that third stanza (the one everyone loves, including me), and then bringing it back out of the realm of ideas and into reality again. The poem does that so well.

For me, the last stanza fits perfectly, because I read the whole poem as a breath -- one long inhale as our lungs fill and we read aloud, and then one soft exhale as we come back to this intimate and close connection. It even looks that way to me on the page.

And the title works well, too. Inhale in that empty house, exhale. Read. Read some more. Love this. *

This is wonderful. And yes, there does seem to be a bit of (welcome)'otherness' shining through of late.

"her desk, her room, her readings"

Who "her" be?

;-)

Speaker of the poem, JB. It makes sense in non-gender specific references, use your own. I would say the reader does become the I and/or the you of the poem.

Well, in that you'd be intrusively wrong...

"non-gender" does not exist.

"Cheers!"

as False Finnegan would say...

I haaaaaaaaaaaaate it when we fight! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!

(and I mean that in the most respectful and non-gender specific way)

You had me right away with the title. How could I not read this poem? And it does not disappoint. A beautiful, well-crafted piece from start to finish.

Sorry for my error, Matt. The hour was too late and the wind too thick in the dillweed, and so on. Non gender-specific was what I meant.

All that aside - according to Led Zeppelin, the poem remains the same.

Brilliantly done, a kind of wry, melancholic undertone, like Cafavy.

Great control and attention to the right details. An accomplished music.

Oh wow, the person who you're expecting probably is Rilke. *

Intrigued. I really like how self-referential this is. And I enjoyed reading this several times discovering new lines each round. Just like Rilke! Mad world. Well flaunted.

I have to agree on the notion of improvement. This is great.