After Rilke is the culmination of more than five years work. I began thinking about the sounds of words (rather than their meanings) the summer of 2001 while reading from bpNichol’s whimsical translations of both Catullus and Apollinaire. It was these works that got me going, opened my mind to other possibilities. However, it was Louis Zukofsky’s Catullus that asked me to put pen to paper. I’m unsure when Rilke’s The Voices entered in, but it was early on. Only later did Spicer begin to help me re-arrange the furniture – the Martians have been with me ever since. As you know, we are the “future poets” that Jack spoke of and this work is meant to correspond with his.

“All first person pronouns have a shared pulse. Here, Rilke’s original poems are being translated by Goldstein (and the epistolary Martians) a la Spicer’s After Lorca. The author is soaking German for its English. By sound. Did he say what I thought he said? Spider? Milky? A homage to both Spicer and Rilke, this sequence of skewed echoes is inter-cut by angry and comical dispatches. The playful snarl of Language itself.” – Phil Hall

Toronto writer Mark Goldstein’s poems have appeared in periodicals including Matrix and echolocation. An avid small presser, he has issued limited edition books under the Beautiful Outlaw imprint. His book length long poem From Shore to Shore will be published in 2009. He is currently translating poems by the late Paul Celan.

48 pages; perfectbound into printed wrappers
ISBN 978 1 897388 21 1
Spring 2008