Stranger on Earth

In the nine “Voices” poems (“Die Stemmen,” 1902), we find Rilke speaking out for those who have suffered pain and injustice. He insists that in order for them to be heard, they need to “advertise” themselves, and this should be done through singing, or songs – like the castrati (referred to as “these cut ones”) who sing to God and compel him to stay and listen. This message is found in the “Title Leaf” – an introduction of sorts to the nine songs. It is tempting to read the nine songs (“Beggar’s,” “Blind Man’s,” “Drunkard’s,” “Suicide’s,” “Widow’s,” “Idiot’s,” “Orphan Girl’s,” “Dwarf’s,” “Leper’s”) as a collection of poetic pleas for social awareness. This is due to Rilke’s “casting choices”; he has selected society’s most conspicuous outcasts as the main speakers of his poems. When, for instance, the beggar in “The Beggar’s Song” says, “I go always from door to door/rain-soaked and sun-scorched,” we are induced to sympathise with his downtrodden fate. The same can be said for...

Inspiration, as most artists already know, is that rare glimmer that shines at the most random of moments. It is elusiveness personified, utterly indifferent to your summoning and pleading. “Writer’s block,” that is what we modern-day writers call it when it refuses to obey our wishes, leaving us high and dry while the clock is ticking away deep into the night. Classic poets John Keats and Rainer Maria Rilke show us what needs to be done if one is to be inspired. In Keats’ celebrated “Ode to Psyche,” we find the speaker singing the praise of Psyche because she is the “latest born and fairest vision far/Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!” Psyche’s beauty is so astonishing that even Eros, sent by Aphrodite out of sheer jealousy to punish her, injured himself with his love arrow and fell head over heels for her. However, Keats says Psyche, despite her earth-shattering beauty, is without her worshippers: “though temple thou hast none/Nor altar heap'd with flowers/Nor virgin-cho...