Angels and Archaic Heads

Today we confessed to each other our ambivalence towards Rilke.

You admitted you detested his whiney prose in Letters to a Young Poet

so I doubled down to his slushy poems - those dreary Duino Elegies

I have tried so hard to love in various translations & you said you were 

with me there & it was all joy so we ordered more tea & paused

to adore Adrienne Rich and Lucille Clifton before returning to the man:

hmmm still some flashes of genius, I opined - angels and archaic heads

and such – & we remembered Klossowska, the neglected artist who 

gave herself up to nurturing the poet in his final years. You added 

that Rilke wasn't all-out sexist like some of them, a point in his favour. 

True, I replied, considering the times. 

But hang on surely that should 

not be a point in his favour but merely a point that doesn't count 

against him. My friend, let us remind ourselves we do not need to be 

a pair of wary females always pleasantly surprised not to be obliterated.

Jacqueline Saphra