Perhaps the greatest lyric poet of the twentieth century, RAINER MARIA RILKE (1875 - 1926) was born in Prague and led a nomadic existence, living in Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy and France before his death in Switzerland from leukaemia. He dedicated himself exclusively to his work, including the New Poems (1907 - 8), the semi-autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), Duino Elegies (1923) and Sonnets to Orpheus (1923). MARTYN CRUCEFIX's own poetry - for which he has won numerous prizes, including a major Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship - has been praised as 'urgent, heartfelt, controlled and masterful' (Poetry London). His collections include Beneath Tremendous Rain (1990), At The Mountjoy Hotel (1993), On Whistler Mountain (1994), A Madder Ghost (Enitharmon, 1997), An English Nazareth (Enitharmon, 2004) and Hurt (Enitharmon, 2012). His translation of Rilke's Duino Elegies (Enitharmon, 2006) was shortlisted for the Corneliu Popescu Prize and chosen by the novelist Philip Pullman as one of his 40 favourite books.

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