In 1902 19 year old Franz Kappus decided to send some of his writings to the poet Rainer Maria Rilke in the hopes of gaining some guidance and direction in his writing and life. The two began a correspondence that would last about six years and form the content for a small but influential work that was simply titled Letters to a Young Poet.
Kappus asked the anxiety-laden question in his first letter to Rilke, “Are my verses good?” Rilke perceives that he is not the first person Kappus would have asked this question. When we create something and offer it to an individual or to the public we are often asking the simple question, “Am I any good?” In response to Kappus’ angst Rilke replies,
I beg you to give up all that. You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only a single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all — ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? … And if this should be affirmative … then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose.
And if out of this turning inward, out of this absorption into your own world verses come, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good verses.
0 Responses to “Letters to a Young Poet — Letter 1”