{"product_id":"letters-to-a-young-poet-isbn-9780394741048","title":"Letters to a Young Poet","description":"The ten letters collected here are arguably the most famous and beloved letters of our century. Written when Rainer Maria Rilke was himself still a young man with most of his greatest work before him, they are addressed to a student who had sent Rilke some of his work, asking for advice about becoming a writer. The two never met, but over a period of several years Rilke wrote him these ten letters, which have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of readers for what Stephen Mitchell calls the \"vibrant and deeply felt experience of life\" that informs them.\"The common reader will be delighted by Stephen Mitchell’s new translation of that slim and beloved volume by Rilke, \u003cb\u003eLetters to a Young Poet\u003c\/b\u003e . . . the best yet.\"\u003cbr\u003e--\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003eRainer Marie Rilke, the great Austro-German poet, was the author of many works including \u003cb\u003eDuino Elegies\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eSonnets to Orpheus\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStephen Mitchell's translations include Ahead of \u003cb\u003eAll Parting: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Job\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eTao Te Ching\u003c\/b\u003e, and, most recently, \u003cb\u003eBhagavad-Gita\u003c\/b\u003e.  He lives in California.Paris\u003cbr\u003e February 17, 1903\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Dear Sir,\u003cbr\u003e Your letter arrived just a few days ago.  I want  to thank you for the great confidence you have placed in me.  That is all I can do.   I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me.   Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result  in more or less fortunate misunderstandings.  Things aren't all so tangible and sayable  as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen  in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things  are works of art, those mysterious existences, who life endures beside our own small,  transitory life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With this note as a preface, may I just tell you that your verses  have no style of their own, although they do have silent and hidden beginnings or  something personal.  I feel this most clearly in the last poem, \"My Soul.\" There,  something of your own is trying to become word and melody.  And in the lovely poem  \"To Leopardi\" a kind of kinship with that great, solitary figure does perhaps appear.   Nevertheless, the poems are not yet anything in themselves, not yet anything independent,  even the last one and the one to Leopardi.  Your kind letter, which accompanied them,  managed to make clear to me various fault that I felt in reading your verses, though  I am not able to name them specifically.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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 (since you have said you want my advice) 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; see whether  it has spread its root into the very depths of your heart;  confess to yourself whether  you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself  in the most silent hour of your night: \u003ci\u003emust\u003c\/i\u003e I write?   Dig into yourself for a deep  answer.  And is this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question  with a strong, simple \"\u003ci\u003eI must\u003c\/i\u003e,\" then build your life in accordance with this necessity;  your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a  sign and witness to this impulse.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302199283941,"sku":"NP9780394741048","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780394741048.jpg?v=1767731377","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/letters-to-a-young-poet-isbn-9780394741048","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}