Letters to a Young Poet
Reviews
a book that altered my brain chemistry
a book that altered my brain chemistry
all about the wisdom and godspeed on one's journey towards the mastery of solitude. Life, human and its relation with the nature, and God himself.
so thoughtful and thought-provoking. so inspirational and encouraging to live in accepted solitude and embracing growth through the many difficulties and waves of sadness brought about by life 🥹
“Live the questions for now”
If only I could give this to my college self who really needs to hear the words on this book.
Would really recommended this to someone who’s looking for answers in life/ find themselves stuck in sadness/loneliness. Definitely a recommended read for every one of all ages.
Beautiful beautiful beautiful. I close this book as someone who has gained much wisdom from ten letters. I believe this is my introduction to poetry and Rilke, which was challenging at first, but I really enjoyed it. I am so glad I gave this a go.
bellos consejos
Not a big fan of living but maybe I DO want to live after the influence of th following passage:
"Do you recall, from your childhood on, how very much this life of yours has longed for greatness? I see it now, how from the vantage point of greatness it longs for even greater greatness. That is why it does not let up being difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow."
"We must accept our existence to the greatest extent possible; everything, the unprecen-dented also, needs to be accepted. That is basically the only case of courage required of us: to be courageous in the face of the strangest, the most whimsical and unexplainable thing that we could encounter."
“It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another is perhaps the most difficult task.”
was incredibly well written, full of truths I didn’t know I needed
on one hand, I am that type of person that HATES when somebody tells me what to do, how to live my life and how to feel. so of course this was not the most comfortable read. I am still a teenager, still feel some kind of rebellion towards an authority that wants to teach me the ways of life (and an authority only 8 years older than me, for that matter? oh I will rebel even more) on the other hand, I can see why this is a great piece of literature. I understand (most of) the points that he makes, I even tabbed quite a lot of thoughts of his. but I feel like I'm still quite young to truly appreciate this. I am, however, interested to see my reactions to this book in five, ten years' time. the letter from a young worker was way more interesting to me. the points he makes are similar to my thoughts, it is written rather beautifully and I didn't feel like my whole life was being bellitled by it :D
beautiful and endearing
Didn’t want to mark the book as read as I kept coming back ;)
Not sure how to feel about this one. I thought parts were really insightful and true but overall it didn’t do much for me. I was also a little put off by the translation that I read — maybe I shouldn’t have read the commentary as I went but I thought the translators had sort of a weird presence and perspective. I wish they didn’t take portions out of the main letters. 3.5 because apparently every rating has to have a half star.
« but there is much beauty here, because there is much beauty everywhere. »
what a profound book, a stunning exploration of human feelings and poetry. this will be one of those books that will stay with me for the years to come.
If you are a poet/ a writer / artist / admirer of art / or even see art as something just passing, book a date with these letters.
3.5 stars — this would be life-changing for me if i had read this at 15. nevertheless, i’d probably still think about these letters from time to time.
Rilke's heartfelt letters talk about looking inwards into one's self, embracing solitude and making it a haven and an inspiration
we have no reason to be mistrustful of our world, for it is not against us.
loved the gentleness of the letters and of course it is filled with rich thoughts. enjoyed reading them and needed to hear some of them at present
It got good ideas and stuff I second with, a tiny bit inspiring. But half of the book is just pretty words I don't really care about tbh. 3.5
like a warm hug 🤍
A beautiful and benevolently breathtaking insight into the correspondence shared between the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and a military officer and aspiring poet at the time, Mr. Franz Kappus. This 52 paged book is comprised of 10 letters dated from 1902 to 1908 that Rilke wrote to Kappus bestowing deep advice and sage-like wisdom on many elements crucial to experiencing a better and more well-rounded life. This correspondence read as if Rilke was communicating with Kappus on a celestial level of humane embrace. Every segment of each letter regarding its topic was meticulously explained and yet, not a word was wasted or misplaced. A mesmerizing paradox. The letters touched on a variety of topics. A few that I can remember reading about were, firstly, the pivotal and progressive triad that exists between youth, loneliness and love. Secondly, the significant impact that expressions of art (or an art-form) and creativity can have, so long as it comes from a pure place. Thirdly, the value which comes from embracing and accepting personal sadnesses as a means to adequately prepare oneself for the future. Fourthly, that it’s okay to let things happen, and that it’s important to bring oneself away from trying to wonder why, in order to avoid the arrival at wrong conclusions and misplaced blame. Lastly, the crucial momentousness of dedicating oneself to a being in solitary. To summarise this book in a sentence: "If you're like me and can't afford therapy, this book acts as the more cost-effective and emotionally beneficial alternative which you never knew you needed." Of course, there was so much more to this book. However, I will stop my review here in the hopes that it has piqued your interest enough and let you experience it for yourself.
If you want to squeeze in some light but thought-provoking reading to your day, maybe at a coffee shop or a flight away from home, it needs to be this book.
Letters to a Young Poet is a book I wish I had read when I myself was a young poet trying to rhyme words, balancing white space and phrases, often sacrificing my ideas in favor of what I thought was the correct way of writing poems.
Rilke's wisdom poured into me, ready to patiently fill my cup with notes on connection, solitude, on seeking intrinsically to answer the question — must i write?
I don't usually read self-help books but I imagine a really good one must make me feel this way.
I love him so much I feel sick
Highlights
A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. The verdict on it lies in this nature of its origin: there is no other.
“trust yourself and your instincts; even if you go wrong in your judgement, the natural growth of your inner life will gradually, over time, lead you to other insights.
Allow your verdicts their own quiet untroubled development which like all progress must come from deep within and cannot be forced or accelerated. Everything must be carried to term before it is born.
To let every impression and the germ of every feeling come to completion inside, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, in what is unattainable to one’s own intellect, and to wait with deep humility and patience for the hour when a new clarity is delivered.”
What goes on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love; you must somehow keep working at it and not lose too much time and too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people. Who tells you that you have one anyway?
Do not observe yourself too much. Do not draw too hasty conclusions from what happens to you; let it simply happen to you.
It is good to be alone, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult should be one more reason to do it. To love is also good, for love is hard.
What goes on in your innermost being is worth all your love, this is what you must work on however you can and not waste too much time and too much energy on clarifying your attitude to other people.
Take pleasure in your growth, in which no one can accompany you, and be kind-hearted towards those you leave behind, and be assured and gentle with them and do not plague them with your doubts or frighten them with your confidence or your joyfulness, which they cannot understand. Look for some kind of simple and loyal way of being together with them which does not necessarily have to alter however much you may change; love in them a form of life different from your own and show understanding for the older ones who fear precisely the solitude in which you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama which always spans between parents and their children; it saps much of the children's strength and consumes that parental love which works and warms even when it does not comprehend. Ask no advice of them and reckon with no understanding; but believe in a love which is stored up for you like an inheritance, and trust that in this love there is a strength and a benediction out of whose sphere you do not need to issue even if your journey is a long one.
Love your solitude and bear the pain it causes you with melody wrought with lament.
If you hold close to nature, to what is simple in it, to the small things people hardly see and which all of a sudden can become great and immeasurable; if you have this love for what is slight, and quite unassumingly, as a servant, seek to win the confidence of what seems poor - then everything will grow easier, more unified and somehow more conciliatory, not perhaps in the intellect, which, amazed, remains a step behind, but in your deepest consciousness, watchfulness and knowledge.
Artistic experience lies so incredibly close to sexual experience, to its pains and pleasures, that both phenomena are really just different forms of one and the same desire and felicity.
To be an artist means: not to calculate and count; to grow and ripen like a tree which does not hurry the flow of its sap and stands at ease in the spring gales without fearing that no summer may follow. It will come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are simply there in their vast, quiet tranquillity, as if eternity lay before them. It is a lesson I learn every day amid hardships I am thankful for: patience is all!
Works of art are infinitely solitary and nothing is less likely to reach them than criticism. Only love can grasp them and hold them and do them justice.
Seek out the depths of things: irony will never reach down there - and if in so doing you come up against something truly great, inquire whether this way of relating to things originates in a necessary part of your being.
For he who creates must be a world of his own and find everything within himself and in the natural world that he has elected to follow.
Art too is only a way of living
But your solitude, even in the midst of quite foreign circumstances, will be a hold and a home for you, and leading from it you will find all the paths you need.
And if what is close is far, then the space around you is wide indeed and already among the stars; take pleasure in your growth, in which no one can accompany you, and be kind-hearted towards those you leave behind, and be assured and gentle with them and do not plague them with your doubts or frighten them with your confidence or your joyfulness, which they cannot understand.
And what matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer, one distant day in the future.
To be an artist means: not to calculate and count; to grow and ripen like a tree which does not hurry the flow of its sap and stands at ease in the spring gales without fearing that no summer may follow. It will come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are simply there in their vast, quiet tranquillity, as if eternity lay before them.
For he who creates must be a world of his own and find everything within himself and in the natural world that he has elected to follow.
You are looking to the outside, and that above all you should not be doing now. Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself.
One day there will be girls and women whose name will no longer just signify the opposite of the male but something in their own right, something which does not make one think of any supplement or limit but only of life and existence: the female human being.
What goes on in your innermost being is worth all your love, this is what you must work on however you can and not waste too much time and too much energy on clarifying your attitude to other people.
But your solitude, even in the midst of quite foreign circumstances, will be a hold and a home for you, and leading from it you will find all the paths you need.