Rilke accompanied his Neue Gedichte [New Poems], published in two volumes in 1907 and 1908, with numerous pronouncements about their novelty. What was actually new about them? Rilke made several claims: they were the result of persistent labour and careful craftsmanship; they were created directly from nature; and they focussed on objects in all their three-dimensional reality, removing them from time and situating them in space. Rilke's first claim is certainly true: the New Poems are examples of poetic craftsmanship that rises at times to virtuoso heights. His second claim, bolstered by frequent subtitles referring to specific places, is not always accurate: in a number of instances, there was a considerable time lapse between Rilke's first visit to a place and his writing a poem about it. Rilke's third claim has been the topic of much critical debate, but the poems themselves, based on multiple and often quite fanciful analogies, demonstrate that representation of objects as such is not the ultimate effect of the New Poems.

One thing is immediately apparent about Rilke's claims for his poems: he sees them in terms of the visual arts. Rodin's sculptures and, for the second part of the New Poems, Cézanne's painting are his two main models. His association with Rodin and his many visitors and house guests during the period of the New Poems was a crucial factor here; an important series of letters he wrote to his wife, herself a sculptor, about the 1907 Cézanne retrospective was another decisive element.