Letters to a Young Poet

“A Must-Read for the Reflective, Creative, Old Souls For the artist, the romantic, the creative, the soulful, the lover, the highly sensitive — this book is a timeless masterpiece of wisdom, comfort, validation, and inspiration. It’s especially poignant for those on their “coming of age” path, and I return to Rilke here time and time again. It doesn’t matter if you’re a writer or a poet — if you’re a reflective person on the jagged and uncertain path of knowing thyself, this book is like a warm hug. Like a friend who understands you and puts words to feelings you’ve felt deeply but could never quite name. It’s a thin book and a “short” read, but it’s one you’ll come back to over and over, whenever you need it. One of the classic passages: “Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.””

““I beg you, 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.””

“Rilke's most popular work, according to LaTonya (I've never read him). It reflects on writing and the urgency of living.”

“Despite the modifier in the title, this slim volume of letters is useful at any age: chock full of such tender and yet tough, challenging and yet reassuring good advice. Especially worth heeding for those who are creative and romantic (they do so often go hand and hand).”

“Short and potent”