PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
After a decade of university teaching in Germany, and four decades as scholar and teacher in the US and Europe, the focus of Mark S. Burrows’ work explores the intersection of spirituality and the arts, mysticism and poetics. He travels widely throughout the US, Europe, and the UK, lecturing and offering retreats and workshops. As a poet, he writes with what Jay Parini recently described as “a profound awareness of nature and its spiritual resonances.” His recent collection, The Chance of Home: Poems, appeared in 2018. A winner of the Wytter Bynner Prize in Poetry and numerous nominations for a Pushcart Prize, his poems have appeared in more than 30 journals in the US, Europe, Australia, and India. He also edits poetry for the academic journal Spiritus and for the professional journal ARTS. As a translator of German writings into English, his long interest in Rainer Maria Rilke led to the publication, in 2012, of the first version of Book of Hours, a collection Rilke first named simply Die Gebete, or The Prayers; Burrows published this collection, which includes many of Rilke’s best-known poems, in its first English translation as Prayers of a Young Poet (2013). Burrows’ coauthored books of Meister Eckhart poems with Jon M. Sweeney have sold well since first appearing in 2017. The most recent of these is Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light (March 2023).
“This is the translation of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus I have been waiting for. Finally, the poetry sings in English through the many finely-tuned phrases and nuanced lines of another poet. I find myself at the threshold of the invisible, and alive, in these versions, to the mystery.” —Edward Clarke, poet, author of A Book of Psalms and The Vagabond Spirit of Poetry, and Professor of English Literature, Oxford University “Poet Mark S. Burrows shows himself in this book to be truly the bilingual translator Rilke readers in English have long been waiting for. It is not the words only of these magnificent Sonnets that he renders so brilliantly. It is something more closely aligned to a soul sense beyond words—yet glimpsed only through them. My own understanding of Rilke—and of myself—deepened with every phrase. Burrows’ beautiful introduction, too, is a treat, making it possible to perceive—and receive—the gifts that Rilke is offering to Orpheus, yes, but also to each reader.” —Dr. Stephanie Dowrick, PhD. author of In the Company of Rilke: Why a 20th-century visionary poet speaks so eloquently to 21st-century readers For previous books: “Sweeney and Burrows, in poems that are as elegant as they are scholarly, revoice Meister Eckhart’s grounding and expansive instructions to ‘seek the light that shines / out of the darkness.’” —Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet and host of Poetry Unbound, from On Being Studios “In reading Meister Eckhart’s Little Book of the Heart, it again came to mind why I am so drawn to the poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Kabir. There is revelation in this book by Burrows and Sweeney. I sincerely feel it will help one look deeper into the eyes of the Christ and know more of God’s knowledge and love.” —Daniel Ladinsky, international bestselling author of A Year with Hafiz, Love Poems from God “I think Mark Burrows and Jon Sweeney achieve something quite rare and wonderful here. They make Eckhart clear, concise, and very compelling!” —Richard Rohr, OFM, bestselling author of Falling Upward, Breathing Under Water “Each poem is short, spare, distilled. And each one is footnoted, so the reader might begin in enchantment, then trace the poetry to its source. A sure-footed path toward mastering one of the great masters of the last millennia.” —Chicago Tribune
