“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.
“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.
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About the Blog
These are the personal reflections of Jay Valusek on the process of Lectio Poetica, on nature, on poetry in general, and on some of words or phrases from poems we have used in our local gatherings. Archives
January 2017
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