Rainer Maria Rilke Advising Young Creators

Letters to a Young Poet is a collection of letters written between 1903 to 1908 by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke to a young, aspiring poet, Franz Xaver Kappus . As the latter claims, he hoped 'to find understanding' about his future career by writing to the poet he admired. Following, are three out of the ten letters inscribed in the book, which as the author states, could be 'important for many growing and evolving spirits of today and tomorrow'. Sit back, relax and let these words sip into your soul. Extracts of the remaining letters will be posted soon.

Letter One, February 17, 1903

You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise you or help you- no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write. (...)

So, dear Sir, I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. (...) Then take the destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.

Letter Two, April 5, 1903

Ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for one human being to successfully advise or help another.

Letter Three, April 23, 1903

Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. (...)

Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentation, discussions, or introductions of that sort (...)

Allow your judgements their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened.

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, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, 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. (...)

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it everyday of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

* Painting 1 by Scott E. Bartner, Portrait of Lindsay / Pinterest

* Painting 2 artist not known/ Pinterest

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