Go into yourself and examine the depth. Write out of necessity. Seek solitude. Hold fast to what is difficult. Unhappiness transforms you, let it happen. School your doubts until they become constructive critics, request arguments from them.
Rilke gives wise advice like these. But more than that I enjoyed seeing his poetic mind reasoning. He sees the world differently, more sensually, more metaphorically. He trusts the world and all that is happening. There is little cliche or tradition in his thinking, he constructs everything himself.
Rilke is a brave, bright and kind soul. In this book he tries to help another soul deal with hardship and fears that so often besiege a young poet or perhaps any person of any age. ( )

This was pretty terrible. Rilke is repetitive. His writing is abstract, philosophical; he says a whole lot of nothing with a lot of words - and his views are just wrong.

Apparently, poets (or creative people, more generally) shouldn't try to improve their lives, but just "let life happen to them," nor should they try to make friends and form meaningful connections with other humans, but rather "embrace aloneness." Doing those things will make someone a real artist, because all real artists are angsty and no one could possibly understand them, right?

More disturbing is Rilke's view that sex and sexuality are practically the epitome of life; virgins are described as people who haven't yet accomplished anything in life. Because having sex is such a huge accomplishment? And the only one that matters, I guess. ( )

Some lovely quotes and would be interesting to Rilke fans, I assume. Wasn't quite in the mood for a big statement on how to live. ( )

Cannot recommend highly enough to anyone who loves writing or writers. Truly meaningful and beautifully said words of encouragement and inspiration. ( )

Picked this up from the library and read it in one afternoon. The reflections on solitude and patience stood out in particular. I will definitely be re-reading to annotate. I plan to read the letters from Kappus, although I liked being able to apply my own context to Rilke's responses. ( )