When Munich-based poet Maria Luise Weissmann (1899-1929) died unexpectedly at the age of thirty, her peers on the German literary scene knew that the world had lost a poet of great promise-and one whose passing gave as much cause for grief, Otto Heuschele noted, as the recent death of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Influenced by Hofmannsthal and Rilke both, Weissmann spoke with a voice that also recalled-in its formal restraint yet vulnerable candor-that of her American contemporary Edna St. Vincent Millay, though one distinctively her own. Her subjects were wide-ranging-saints, prophets, animals...

Slipping snugly into a knapsack, this book features poems on the subject of wandern ("wandering") by such German Romantics as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ludwig Tieck, Joseph von Eichendorff, Eduard Morike, Nikolaus Lenau, and a host of others. The wisdom offered herein should inspire anyone about to embark on (or simply ponder) a long walking tour or merely a day hike. It is ideal for all who seek beauty, peace, and rejuvenation amid the wonders of God's creation."

The Salzkammergut (or "Salt Chamber Estate") is a region in the Austrian Alps that is rich in natural resources, history, and culture. This volume of poems, which stems from a journey that the poet and his wife took to the area near Hallstatt there in May of 2009, pays tribute to its strangeness, grandeur, and awesome--if sometimes tragic--beauty. Verses by the poet himself go hand in hand with those by Austrian poets to celebrate the Salzkammergut in all its wonder and mystery.