SOURCE: A review of Autumn Sonata: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl and Song of the West: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl in American Book Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, March-April 1990, pp. 17-18.

In the following excerpt, Foster compares Simko's translation with that of Firmage, noting the task is to "find the poem before it is set in language. "

Rilke thought Trakl's books important in liberating "the poetic image." Scholars and critics have expended great effort showing that what he really liberated were his sex ual repressions and his religious obsessions. Was Trakl involved with his sister? Was he a suicide? Was he, in spite of all those ugly rumors, really a Christian?

Does it matter?

Trakl's life was horrible if all the speculations about his psychological torments are indeed true, yet they add nothing to the poems, which simply will not be reduced to explanation.

Jack Spicer learned from Rilke...