You Are the Future is the recipient of a Silver Medal by the Nautilus Book Awards.
To order this book from goodreads.com, click here,
or from amazon.com, click here.
For a short video introduction to this book, click here.
"I love beginnings, despite the fear and uncertainty they bring. When I have won for myself a joy or reward, or when I wish that something had not happened, when I want to deny an experience the right to remain in my past--in such moments, I begin. And what do I do? I simply begin. I've already begun a thousand lives like this. I feel as though a whole generation must come to fulfill all these lives so that they won't remain unfinished."
Rainer Maria Rilke, cited in "To Be a Beginner"
from You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke
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*** "LOVE'S SOFT STILLNESS: HADEWIJCH AND MEISTER ECKHART AS MYSTICAL COMPANIONS": This online event takes place on Saturday, January 24, 2026, 2 - 6 pm EST.
Across the arc of the high Middle Ages, a powerful vernacular “school” of mysticism emerged. Associated with the brilliant 13th century Flemish Beguine Hadewijch and, half a century later, the pioneering Dominican Meister Eckhart, these voices charted new mystical paths for those daring to venture on “a wayless way” (Eckhart). We’ll weave a conversation with these two luminaries, exploring several of Hadewijch’s poems, letters, and visions, and explore several of Eckhart’s sermons and writings--in conversation with the poems Jon Sweeney and I have written, inspired by "the Meister." On this journey we’ll explore the experience they shared of the “abyss” of love/God. Join us for the conversation as we dare to break-through, with them, to the “fruition of love," grounding us in what Hadewijch described--beautifully--as "love's soft stillness." For more information, and to register, click here.
.*** TRANSFORMING THE WORLD FROM WITHIN OUR HEARTS: Rainer Maria Rilke as Spiritual Guide in Difficult Times. An online program on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 7:30 - 9 pm EST.
How do we live in times of dramatic—and, for many, traumatic—change? What spiritual resources can we call upon to find our way forward in difficult times? This Zoom gathering begins with these questions, turning to Rilke’s poems and letters for the insight and inspiration they offer. Together we will explore his invitation to “transform the world from within our hearts,” probing his conviction that we must learn to “live the questions”—and, indeed, “live…everything.” What could be more timely than to probe together such a bold and life-affirming invitation? For more information, and to register, click here.
*** "THE OUTWARD GAZE": Rilke, Rodin, and the Conversation between Poetry and Sculpture, an online poetry craft talk on Thursday, Feb. 12, 3 - 4:30 pm (EST).
The work of poets and sculptors begins not with making but with looking, and this deepens not on the “glance” but on what Rilke called “the outward gaze.” Rilke realized that the inner form of life—in outward things; in nature; in language—reveals itself through that gaze, which is a way of “listening into” the heart of things. He nurtured this fascination alongside Rodin, the great French sculptor with whom Rilke lived and worked during the first decade of the 20th century.
The two shared a reverence for the life-force that courses through everything, things great and small. Both knew that the artist’s creativity—whether through the medium of language or stone—was to give form to what the “outward gaze” sees. This calls for the patience that allows beauty to show itself, above all in what might initially seem insignificant. This craft talk draws on Rilke’s relationship to Rodin, exploring the call to discover beauty at the heart of our life. For more information, and to register, click here.
***** TWO AUTUMN RETREATS (2026) ON THE ISLE OF IONA--one on Rilke's poetic vision (Oct. 19 - 24, 2026), the second (Oct. 26 - Oct. 31) an "Art and Poetry in Dialogue" retreat offered together with Debbie Lewer. Stay tuned for details about these, and registration. These will fill quickly as space is limited; both take place at the lovely St. Columba Hotel, adjacent to the Iona Abbey. Registration opens on January 1, 2026.
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* TO LISTEN TO THE RECENT "READING RILKE TODAY" CONVERSATION, TOGETHER WITH PADRAIG O TUAMA & KAYLEEN ASBO, click here.
TO LISTEN TO "READING RILKE TODAY" (2024) WITH PADRAIG O TUAMA & KRISTA TIPPETT, click here.
TO LISTEN TO MY RECENT CONVERSATION about my new books, The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin and Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness and Light, WITH LISA DELAY ("SPARK MY MUSE" PODCAST), click here.
* * TO LISTEN TO THE RECENT "POETS CORNER" CONVERSATION (April 2, 2023) ON The Wandering Radiance, with Marion Tauschwitz, Christopher Nelson, and Hilary Davies, click here.
*** TO LISTEN TO THE RECENT PODCAST ("OUT OF THE FOG" WITH KAREN HAGER) FEATURING JON SWEENEY AND ME ON OUR NEW ECKHART BOOK, click here.
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Recently distinguished as one of the "Best Spiritual Books of 2024" by Spirituality and Practice, and listed as a Finalist in Poetry by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
J. B. Leishman, who published the first translation of this collection in 1936, wrote that "I feel, in reading [these sonnets], that we have come round the spiral to another 'dawn of consciousness,' where language is in the making, and where myth and symbol must often supply the place of not yet thinkable thoughts. No other writer is so full of the future; no other gives us such thrilling intimations of that inheritance on whose threshold we are standing, and which our civilization may be about to enter, if it does not perish through its own destructive forces."
To order from goodreads.com, click here, or from amazon.com, click here.
To hear Mark's interview on the impossible, joyful journey of translating Rilke the "Emerging Form" podcast, with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Christie Asch, click here.
To preorder this forthcoming book, click here.
NOW AVAILABLE:
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Received a "Gold Medal" by the Nautilus Book Awards in 2024.
Published on March 1, 2023: the third of our Eckhart books, re-voicing the startling wisdom of Meister Eckhart in short, meditative poems. To preorder, click here.
What readers are saying about it:
"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
"Meister Eckhart is one of the greatest of Christian mystics, but because of his depth he can be challenging to read. Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows unlock the poetry in his words to allow his light to shine. What Coleman Barks has done for Rumi, they have done for Eckhart—making his insight accessible and his wisdom sing.” —Carl McColman, author of The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Eternal Heart
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Published in 2023:
"Burrows has succeeded in carrying the radiant power of Domin's poems over to the shoreline of his native tongue. This is an enrichment for all who long to be stirred by the courage and resilience she embodied as a Jewish writer who said of herself, upon returning to Germany following decades in exile: 'I stepped out into the air, and it carried me.'" --Vera-Sabine Winkler, author of Leise Bekenntnisse. Die Bedeutung der Poesie für die Sprache der Liturgie am Beispiel von Hilde Domin
"These shimmering poems by Hilde Domin lodge in the heart and blaze in the mind as they trace the journey of a deep soul through exile and self-realization. I would recommend these vivid poems to anyone who ares about the transformative power of great poetry." --Jay Parini, poet, biographer, screen-writer, and author of Why Poetry Matters
This new translation marks the first full collection of Hilde Domin's poems in English; to order this volume directly from Green Linden Press, click here. For a short endorsement by CAConrad, click here.
A SAMPLE OF RECENT BOOKS
Mark S. Burrows, The Chance of Home. Poems (2018); to order, click here (Paraclete) or here (amazon.com).
Meister Eckhart's Book of Secrets, with Jon M. Sweeney (2019); to order, click here.
Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart, with Jon M. Sweeney; poems revoicing the wisdom of Meister Eckhart; to order, click here.
Also available: revised paperback edition of Rainer Maria Rilke, Prayers of a Young Poet (Paraclete Press, 2016). Heralded by Bill Moyers as "a powerful alchemy of the heart." To order, click here.
SAID, 99 Psalms, translated by Mark S. Burrows (Paraclete Press, 2013); to order, click here.
The Paraclete Poetry Anthology. Selected and New Poems, 2015 - 2016, edited by Mark S. Burrows (2016). To oder, click here.