{"id":1063,"date":"2024-03-04T13:38:55","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/podcast.ruthstonehouse.org\/?post_type=podcast&p=1063"},"modified":"2024-03-22T11:23:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T15:23:15","slug":"reading-with-rilke-the-first-elegy","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/podcast.ruthstonehouse.org\/podcast\/reading-with-rilke-the-first-elegy","title":{"rendered":"Reading with Rilke: The First Elegy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Rainer Maria Rilke has been hailed as one of the most profound and genius poets of the 20th century. His Duino Elegies <\/em>in particular, in tandem with the Sonnets to Orpheus, are seen as the pinnacle of his poetic achievements. Whole books could be written on each elegy. Here, Bianca Stone joins with guests to deep-dive into each poem and find inspiration from Rilke’s enduring insights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Special guest Alina Stefanescu joins the podcast to discuss Rilke’s “The First Elegy,” which sets the stage for his decade long inquiry into the inner-outer world of the psyche, and experience in the world and the mission of his poetic oeuvre. Here we see the longing for an authentic relation to the divine, to the infinite, and complex relation to selves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With special thanks to Noelle Mrugalla-Paraan for reading us The First Elegy in the original German.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina\u2019s poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as poetry editor for several journals, reviewer and critic for others. She is currently working on a novel-like creature. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alina’s Poems on ITERANT<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Books We Mention:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, Stephen Mitchell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Duino Elegies, Alfred Corn (WW Norton)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n New Poems, Rilke, Joseph Cadora (Copper Canyon)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n News of the Universe, Robert Bly (Counterpoint)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The word <\/strong>lyric <\/em><\/strong>comes to us from the ancient lyre\u2014from this relationship between the poem, the accompanying instrument, and the song. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Poetry began with oral recitations, punctuated by intonation, accompanied by a lyre, a stringed musical instrument which dates back to 1400 BC in ancient Greece. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As poetry was born from this relationship to music, the lyre was born of Hermes’ cunning in Greek myth. Hermes, son of Zeus and messenger of the gods, stole a herd of sacred cattle from Apollo, the god of poetry and music. Hermes was clever, tricky, a good thief who didn’t let the wrong act prevent him from conducting the conventional rituals. (These rituals will become central to every religion, and religions institutionalized the rituals that keep the world in balance.) What Hermes brought to rituals was a sort of cleverness, namely, cunning<\/em>, that didn’t intend to destroy rituals so much as <\/em>alter <\/em>them creatively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, Hermes played with form<\/em>: he improvised on the given rites, and “completed” them, in this case, by slaughtering a cow and offering it as a libation (or first fruit) to his father, Zeus. While his father was distracted, Hermes used the cow’s intestines and a tortoise shell to craft the world’s first lyre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember that Hermes had stolen these cows from Apollo, the god of poetry and music. When Apollo discovered his cows had been stolen by Zeus’ son, he was furious. And he would have cursed Hermes if not for the hypnotizing melodies emanating from the lyre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “I must have this instrument!” Apollo told Hermes, “I will give you my cows in return for it!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is how Apollo became the maestro of the lyre, Hermes got away with stealing some cows, and poetry gained its lyrical symbol as depicted in countless paintings and sculptures<\/a> of Apollo holding the lyre. Or (as pictured above): an ancient Greek vase painting of Apollo with a lyre and a crow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love how close “lyre” sounds to “liar,” and how the proximity of sounds provides us with material as writers. The shadow of Hermes’ cunning stands on the boundary erected between music and poetry. There is guts and silk in it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These are the two materials necessary for the construction of a poem: guts and silk. These are also the two materials used to make lyre-strings. Ancient lyres and harps were strung with animal intestines; modern lyres tend to be strung with silk. Both materials were selected for their strength and resonance. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAbout our Guest: Alina Stefanescu<\/h1>\n\n\n\n