Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (1929)

Ten letters from the great German poet to a young correspondent seeking poetic enlightenment.

Nonfiction Review: Letters to a Young Poet contains much valuable advice, which most young people will ignore and never become poets worth reading, but a few will listen and learn and so make the most of whatever talent they possess. These letter were written when Rilke was in his late 20s and early 30s, just coming into his own as a poet. He disowned most of his poetry written before then. His greatest strengths here are his sincerity and his belief in solitary self-reliance ("Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody."). The letters were written as he received letters from his young correspondent, as thoughts struck Rilke, as he had time to ponder, not as some carefully planned, ordered, and organized program of poetry instruction. The letters are all the more valuable for that. Self-help books cannot make a good poet of someone who is not, but they can save a good poet significant time in developing that talent. Rilke doesn't concern himself with ephemera: the pointless mechanics of words, lines, and structure. Rather he works to help his young friend discover if he has the soul of a poet, if he has the inner strength, spirit, passion, and feeling to be a poet. For Rilke that is the sole importance, that is all of it. He advises the searching poet to be alone, to look deep within, and to determine whether the nascent poet must write. His advice is to seek depth, not irony; ignore criticism; to listen only to the inner voice; to be human, not male (Rilke's correspondent was a young man). Rilke emphasizes the importance of solitude, the strength gained through loneliness, the value of re-living child-like moments. He teaches that learning to love one another is a lengthy process ("do not write love-poems"). The great poet reveals a surprisingly insightful view of women and values the truth of nature above all. Rilke believed that the poet can change the world into spirit, into something meaningfully communicated through depths of feeling and memory: "How much he was at one with all these things!" Letters to a Young Poet is a treasure trove of lessons for the seeking writer; it may not appeal to all readers. Such a short book should simply be read on principle, to gather anything at all that speaks to anyone wanting to write. My edition was translated in somewhat archaic language ("thither irony never descends"; "to a sojourn in the Eternal City Rilke was himself nothing loath"). It's worthwhile to look for some more modern translations to see if some of the denser and more opaque language should be blamed on Rilke or the humble translator. For someone in their late-teens or early twenties, with serious aspirations to poetry, Letters to a Young Poet can only be a benefit.  [4★]