Letters to a Young Poet is a compilation of ten letters that the poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to an aspiring writer. It sounds like a boring premise for someone not obsessed or even remotely familiar with Rilke’s work, but Rilke’s writing is so engaging and thoughtful, and a lot of the topics felt very relevant even if you aren’t a writer. It makes for a tiny little book that you can revisit over and over.
Rilke writes prose like poetry. Every word seems intentional, and though the letters could get repetitive, he would often insert a little extra nugget or present the information in a slightly new way that prompts a different perspective. The most prevalent topics were the necessity and value of solitude to creative thinking, the futility of literary criticism, the importance of drawing close to nature and drawing from your own experiences in your art, the question of whether you can “lose” God, the perversions of lust versus the purity of sex, and general life advice of overcoming doubt and fear and of confronting love and death.
I wasn’t totally interested in every single topic in the letters. The discussions on solitude were probably the most interesting to me, while I didn’t connect with his discussions on religion and sex. According to the editors of my book, Rilke was a social creature who found solitude difficult but absolutely necessary to produce art: “Go into yourself and explore the depths from which your life flows.” For me, solitude is generally the easiest way of being and the struggle is the opposite. I’m not sure if Rilke’s advice of embracing solitude was enabling or illuminating.
My largest issue with the book isn’t Rilke’s fault at all but the translators’. My edition was translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, published in 2021, and I’m not a huge fan of the translators’ decision to censor the letters. In a lot of the letters, they took out the parts that they felt were insensitive, that they didn’t agree with, or that they felt bogged down the letter too much. They included the excerpted parts in the back half commentary, but they interjected their own opinions too much onto Rilke. That being said, it makes for an interesting example of the principle of translating as a collaborative act with the writer. It’s the most obvious example of the translators actively inserting themselves in the material I’ve come across.
Here are some excerpts of Rilke’s letters I really liked:
On the futility of literary criticism: “Whether positive or negative, they will always reflect some measure of misunderstanding.”
Seemingly on the futility of what he has dedicated his life to (writing, even though he’s technically still talking about literary criticism): “Most experiences are unsayable; they become real to us in a space no word has entered.”
“For any one person to advise or help another, so much must come together; a whole constellation of factors must be in play for that to succeed even once.”
“This is one of the toughest tests for creative artists: to remain ever unaware of their best qualities in order not to rob them of authenticity.”
“Life has not abandoned you, […] it is holding you, and out of its web you cannot fall.”
“Live the questions.”
“Your doubt can become a good quality if you can train it. It must become wise and discerning. Ask it, as soon as it wants to spoil something, why this thing is hateful, and demand proof; make it show you.”
