“Now I become myself. It’s taken / Time, many years and places; / I have been dissolved and shaken, / Worn other people’s faces . . .” —May Sarton
Rainer Maria Rilke was just 29 years old when he began writing his now famous Letters To A Young Poet, to Franz Xaver Kappus, a German military student who was 19 when the two began corresponding in 1903. Kappus had nervously sent Rilke some poems, asking his opinion.
“You ask whether your verses are any good,” Rilke replied, with tenderness. “You ask me. You have asked others before this . . . I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now.
“You ask whether your verses are any good,” Rilke replied, with tenderness. “You ask me. You have asked others before this . . . I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now.
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