"Letters To A Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke (published 1929)

Usually, when someone directly asks me what my favorite book is, I say that I haven’t yet found it, but I love many. This is no longer true. Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke is now my favorite book, and although I am not an artist, reading it compelled me in such a way that other books have only made me contemplate. Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet encouraged me to change; my opinions, my fears, and my actions. Rilke asks Kappus, the poet he is writing to, not to neglect his emotions, but to feel them, however wonderful or painful, and to turn “inward” in his search for truth (first letter). Rilke also reminds Kappus, in another letter, that beauty can be found in everything – such as, if one had an unhappy childhood, there are things, perhaps even things special to a certain individual, to be found in memory that, if missed or searched for, will bring peace and humility (sixth letter):

“try to be close to Things; they will not abandon you; and the nights are still there, and the winds that move through the trees and across many lands; everything in the world of Things and animals is still filled with happening, which you can take part in; and children are still the way you were as a child, sad and happy in just the same way and if you think of your childhood, you once again live among them”

There are ten poems collected in this book, each one speaking of a different part of life. I read it once through, and a few hours later began from the beginning and started to read again. Never has a book made me want to read it a second time, *without delay*. If possible, this will be a book that I will keep in my bag or purse wherever I go.

The ten poems were written in the early 20th century. It is a mystery how unparalleled the writing is, in terms of applicability in the 21st century; Letters To A Young Poet, in short and maybe needless to say, is a work of art.