The Inner Sky: Poems, Notes, Dreams by Rainer Maria Rilke

selected & translated by Damion Searls
Black Sparrow Books

A tricky book: not quite poetry, not quite fiction, not quite essays, and parallel German (with some French) and English texts to boot. Black Sparrow editor Christopher Carduff pushed me to create a design that was as crisp and lucid as Rilke’s texts. We came up with something far removed from the standard Jugendstil treatment that makes Rilke seem so frumpy. Chris wasn’t sure about the Gerhard Richter painting I chose for the cover (one of several proposed by the editor/translator), but there’s something marvelous about the way it contrasts with the content. I’m glad we went with it, and grateful to Richter’s studio for letting us use it, crop it, and put type on it.

Softcover with French flaps, 5.5 × 8.5"