Letters to a Young Poet

The poet prefaced each letter with an evocative notation of the city in which he wrote, including Paris, Rome, and the outskirts of Pisa. Yet he spends most of the time encouraging the student in his own work, delivering a sublime, one-on-one equivalent of the modern writing workshop:

Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside.

The first letter gives the greatest advice anyone can give to someone aspiring to be anything. You have to ask yourself the following question: "must I?" If you answer in the affirmative, then "build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into it's humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse." That you must only judge Art by the following value, has it arisen out of necessity?

The second letter, he warns against the role of irony running through your life and one must guard against it by searching "into the depths of Things: there irony never descends."

The third letter argues that one must always trust in yourself and your own feelings. Do not fall victim to convention. Which is nothing more than unwillingness on each of our parts to not fully engage life, but rather to take what others have said and done as well-traveled roads to walk through life upon. For the person living a poetic life, "everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable...and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating."

The fourth letter argues for one to trust in Nature. We all must learn how to "win the confidence of what seem poor." A fundamental change in our mindset must occur in our hearts, a shift from convention to authenticity. We have "to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language." The incredible thirst for quick and easy answers to life's most difficult questions must end. We have to take in the questions, which are really emotions or feelings without names into our bloodstreams. To "live the questions." He goes on to expand upon our relations to sex. "Sex is difficult." We all have to create out of each of our own unique lives an individual relation to sex and hence to our lovers, without carrying the luggage that society and convention loads us down with, then you will approach being a human being. Sex has to become more than a stimulant or balm to cover a more fundamental ache in our spirits. We should be stewards of our own "fruitfulness" to "gather sweetness , depth, and strength for the song of some future poet." (DO YOU DO THAT INBETWEEN THE SHEETS! )

The sixth letter concerns the notion of "solitude." We all create a "vast inner solitude." To walk inside yourself for hours without meeting anyone, that is what you must be able to attain. Through this you gain a child-like perspective, a great "wise not-understanding in exchange for defensiveness and scorn (of adults)." It is within the vast ocean of your solitude that we can truly approach and understand the dimensions of divinity that exists. How do you confront God? By being "patient and without bitterness, and realize that the least we can do is make coming into existence no more difficult for Him than the earth does for spring when it wants to come."

The entire series of letters find its zenith in the seventh letter in which Rilke takes the notion of Solitude and marries it with Love. He argues that yes "love is difficult." But that we must put our trust "in what is difficult as Nature does, to exercise our beings to their fullness." The act of Loving another human being is the "most difficult task...for which all other work is mere preparation." Each of us must "learn" how to love. To know that it springs from our oceans of solitude not from a formless merging of ourselves to another. But rather that each of us must "ripen" into individuals that can experience and give love, "to hearken and hammer day and night." To Love is to accept a "burden and apprenticeship" that allows each authentic person to grow and become rather than fall back and lose what makes them unique and rare. The ultimate aim of life is "the love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other."

The seventh letter deals with the meaning and confronting of sadness. Rather than running away or fearing sadness, Rilke argues that it is something that must be embraced as an opportunity. These are the moments when something new is entering us "our feelings grow mute in shy embarrasment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing." In the face of this sadnessthe only courage required is to "face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that meet us." Not to run and cower before the immensity of those feelings and experiences, but to recognize them for what they are, an opportunity to blossom.

The ninth letter argues that we must trust our feelings. But only those feelings that uplift us entire, not by portion. Feelings that raise only a part of us, distort us.

The final letter argues for this poetic life. For Rilke, "Art too is a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it."

These ten letters show you how.


Devotional   February 13, 2001
 36 out of 36 found this review helpful

A fine transition from German to English (A-, A+ being Mitchell's translation of the poems), nevertheless no one should be afraid of buying this particular translation. It is sensitive to what Rilke wanted to say and says it in about as good English as you could get from such magnificent language.


Letter I wrote my friend upon sending this book:   September 26, 1999
 26 out of 30 found this review helpful

Erin, I'm sitting in my corner room which is a horrendous mess currently. But if I look out of the windows a certain way, I feel as though I'm looking over the iron balconies of Paris in the twenties. Which is rather nice. I've been reading voraciously the past few days, and I want to send you a book. It expresses things about religion, about solitude, about sex, about life, which strike a chord inside me, creating a real harmony. The writer has a way of causing in me that feeling when I can't remember a word, but it's on the tip of my tongue. I understand the essence of the word, but I can't place the actual thing. It escapes me. Then someone relieves me by coming up with precisely that word. (Perhaps after days of torture.) It's a jubilant occurance when I pronunce it. The comfort of matching name with thing. This writer brings me this relief about all the lost musings of my life. He puts perfectly into words a combination of philosophies, and his writing resonates with that absolute truth which transcends the individual. I think you'll like. Auf wiedersehen. Love, Lauren


eternal wisdom should be shared with everyone   September 17, 1998
 26 out of 26 found this review helpful

A very good friend gave this book to me as I was struggling to find myself during my early college years. I was instantly amazed at how a book written over ninety years ago could be so precisely helpful to the many questions I was suffering with at the time. Rilke introduced me to the concept of solitude as a blessing. This idea has truly changed my life for the better as I have taken the time to step away from life and look inside for the answers I seek. If I had one gift to give someone I truly cared about, it would be this masterpiece. Although the contents of this book can not be appreciated by everyone, I challenge all to read it and see if it sparks the fire in them that it has brought to me.


For the Artist   October 24, 1998
 25 out of 25 found this review helpful

This book first came to my attention when a good friend of mine sent me a quote from it, which has since become my life quote ("Be patient toward everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves..Do not search for the answers which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything...Live the questions now")

Since I heard this quote, I tracked down a copy of the book after searching a half dozen bookstores and libraries, and it was worth every minute of work to find it. This book has been put on the highest level of appreciation in my mind, up there with Richard Bach's 'Illusion' and 'One'; my two other favorite books. Rilke's book was written for the artist; the person who wants to live life to its fullest and explore both the inner and outer world and their connections.

Although, as another reviewer said, this book will not be fully appreciated by all readers, it is a must read for everyone, especially those who appreciate spirituality, art and living.