RILKE AND POETRY AFTER SIXTY

Beginning next week, I have the privilege to give a little course about the great poet, Rilke, at Oshler Lifetime Learning Institute at Towson University. The center targets people over fifty, but most are over sixty, hence the title of this little essay. The three previous courses that I gave at Towson were on Thomas Mann, Kafka and Camus. Since I am a poet, I thought it was time to discuss a poet, even though reading Rilke is not always easy.
The two points I want to make in this essay are that the understanding of poetry for the average reader is easier as one gets older and that discussing Rilke in English translation is a very difficult task.

1.

It has been my experience that poetry comes easier to children, becomes increasingly more difficult with the onset of puberty and returns in one's later years. (I am discussing the average individual, of course, not poets or those who read poetry regularly--the latter becoming so rare that both the former and the latter are, I fear, almost one and the same.)
Children below eight or nine tend to think in concrete terms, have little sense of abstraction, and, trained on nursery rhymes, have a sense of rhythm. They are typically not afraid to dance or sing, much of the desire for which wanes as self-conscious individuality develops. Well, let me stop writing abstractly and turn to a striking example of a child's poem. She was Chinese, and, about five years old. A poet through Poets In The Schools conducted a little writing exercise in a New York City pre-school, and was astonished by the little girl's poem:

YELLOW

Yellow, yellow, yellow.
The sky is yellow
The sun is yellow
My skin is yellow

Must be a yellow day!


Isn't that delightful? It reads very well, like a good nursery rhyme. And notice how she joins macrocosm to microcosm--so frequent in Shakespeare and so often the cause of poetic catharsis. First comes sky, then the sun beyond the sky--and then the skin which is right here. She unites all of these, proclaiming like a little Sufi that everything is one. And notice that she does this without a hint of abstraction, like a true little poet. I find these lines amazing, especially since it isn't written by an author playing faux-naif, but by an "innocent" child!

This ability declines rapidly as adolescence approaches. From that time into old age, Wordsworth's "The world is too much with us," applies--meaning, of course, the world of the ego. The adolescent for the first time becomes acutely aware of his own individuality, limitations, and the increasing impositions of culture. Learning isn't just a thing to do, it has a specific goal: success in the workplace. During this time of life, what I call prose-thinking dominates.

As a physician, I have seen many poems written by adolescents over the years. I put them into two categories, the "Ode to Death," ones by depressed adolescents and the "Ode to Love," ones by those who have been wounded by Cupid. Both varieties are invariably terrible. I was in an adult poetry workshop in the sixties; the instructor, who was perhaps too direct, told us he had to have a few martinis before class so he could stomach reading our poems. Too right, too rude.

After one realizes that the mark one has left on life is not in indelible ink and will soon wash off, a different mind-set arises. One has put one's individuality in perspective. No need to impress, no need to compete. One appreciates life day by day. One no longer has to be so functional--one can play as an adult child. If this stage of life is preceded by a well-integrated middle-age, it can be delightful.
As an example, I offer a poem by my mother, who never wrote a poem in her life until well into her sixties, and then for only a week or two. She wrote it years after my brother married a Chinese woman. (Note: it is a joke; she was very fond of her daughter-in-law and of us)


FORTUNE COOKIE

One son
Two son
Woe is me!

Two son
One son
Woe is she!

My mother explained to me that the last line is not a grammatical error made to accommodate a rhyme. She meant that her daughter-in-law now personifies Woe, has become Woe, after marrying my brother. This poem is not as good as the five year old's but it's not bad--it is unburdened by abstractions, is understated and contains wordplay, humor--and a surprise ending that surprised even her as she made sense of it later. This is a principle of poetry: letting language take you where it wants to go, and, if need be, editing the text afterwards.




2.

I was astounded to find a poem by Rilke that illustrates the three ages of poetic life. I was also astounded to discover that the competent translator missed the point entirely. Rilke, whose poetry is first of all musical, also contains deep meaning. Since this and many other examples of botched translation that fail to convey the music and/or meaning, I chose a bilingual edition. I will have a lot of explaining to do! Here is the poem and translation:

Ich finde dich in allen diesen Dingen,
denen ich gut und wie ein Bruder bin;
als Samen sonnst du dich in den geringen
und in den grossen giebst du gross dich hin.

Das ist das wundersame Spiel der Kraefte,
dass sie so diendend durch die Dinge gehn:
in Wurzeln wachsend, shwindend in die Schaefte
und in den Wipfeln wie ein Auferstehn.

I find you, Lord, in all Things and in all
my fellow creatures, pulsing with your life;
as a tiny seed you sleep in what is small
and in the vast you vastly yield yourself.

The wondrous game that power plays with Things
is to move in such submission through the world:
groping in roots and growing thick in trunks
and in treetops like a rising from the dead.

A prose translation: I find you in all these things which I love and to which I am like a brother; you sun yourself as seed in little things and in great things you enter greatly. That powers enter things in such an accommodative manner is a strange game: growing in roots, fading into the trunks, and in the treetops like a resurrection.

I don't want to burden the reader with a line-by-line account of what has been lost in translation here. The reader is invited to do that herself. I will address only the last two lines, which contain the gist of the poem--as good last lines do--which was totally missed by the translation: growing in roots (like the poetry of children); fading in tree trunks (like the poetry of adolescence and average adults), and then, resurrection--the return of poetry. In other words: the stage of children's (poetic) delights, followed by the stage of the Ego's (prosy) burdens, followed by the final stage: the delight of a child resurrected in an experienced adult.

Next week I will do my best to overcome inadequate translations to help my students appreciate a major poet. I also espect that our advanced years will make my job a little easier.