Letters to a Young Poet

"So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday
life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. (Letter 1)

"[A]lmost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious. If you just recognize this and manage, out of yourself, out of your own talent and nature, out of your own experience and childhood and strength, to achieve a wholly individual relation to sex (one that is not influenced by convention and custom), then you will no longer have to be afraid of losing yourself and becoming unworthy of your dearest possession. (letter 4)

"[A]nd I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't 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. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. (letter 4)

"What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours - that is what you must be able to attain." (letter 6)

These are my favorite excerpts from Ranier Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. It is a reminder to myself what this blog serves to do, and what I must personally strive to do as well.

I read Rilke a month ago, when my heart ached from a certain foolishness I wish not to describe. I wrote an email to a friend discussing my reading, but I have reformatted it here as if it were a conversation. I do not use title case in writing emails. All commentary is based on: http://www.sfgoth.com/~immanis/rilke/letter1.html

From the email:

on the importance of solitude: introspection and companionship are complementary, though rillke seems to focus exclusively on solitude--despite the fact that he's having an epistolary friendshipwith another man. i figure to know oneself in solitude, one must also know oneself through others. one can't do one without the other.

on solitude: rilke devotes plenty of space to love. mature love.loving another human being. but prior to this mature love comes self-understanding, through solitude. otherwise, young love is confused, immature, fruitless.

(letter 7) on convention, specifically in relation to relationships: conventions are sort of best-practices models that work for the majority. a convention that allows for another convention does notseem problematic if you're starting with individuals who like safe,unadulterated, straight paths.

on love and relationships and convention: no two relationships are the same. thus, his advice to avoid convention. love is a very personal art and endeavor. convention cannot serve this purpose. convention also contradicts what he discusses as the importance of the difficult. every-thing worthwhile and serious is difficult. convention, on the other hand, is not.

on women: not sure what he's saying. notions of "bodily fruit""essential nature" and "humanity of woman" turn me off. what i think he's saying: when women break out of conventions of gender, they are better off. why that's a problem: responsibility, duty no longer apply

on women: why do those phrases bother you? bodily fruit in that that's what a woman is. in providing sustenance for an embryo, fetus,child. via umbilical cord and via breast. essential nature in that only a woman begets another human being and the continuation of the species. conventions of gender: at the turn of the 19th century,women as merely dolls, playthings, servants to satisfy the male appetite. men as brave warriors and women as coy. i dont know if he's simply talking about breaking the gender convention, but more about respect for women. responsibility, duty: women display a huge responsibility to their children.