Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke / by Christina Rosalie

I can't give you any advice but this; to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create.

In college, my girlfriends and I would sit around late at night drinking Merlot or green tea and reading excerpts aloud. It spoke to us then about our situation in the world--attempting to love men who were never quite good enough for us, while striving to remain wholly creative and independent. I just re-read it again recently, cover to cover in an afternoon. Now it speaks to the writer in me. Gives me hope that because I can't live without writing, I will write. That comitting myself to this process is a means to an end, and the end both, at once. Rilke's words in this short collection of letters are profound, searing, and yet simple. This is an advice book, before advice books existed. Nearer to the heart, without any of the pretence and promise of success that newer books in this genre bear, nearly every page has markings--underlined scribbles, dog-eared edges. Too good to write about without letting the writing speak for itself.