Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

I go on man dates. It’s pretty simple. Two guys, go on a date.

It’s not romantic. It's a date where two guys get together to see if they want to be friends because they have discovered through drinking with other mutual friends that they are kindred spirits in some way.

It sounds cheesy but I've had some of my best friendships forged and discovered on man dates.

On one of these particular man dates my (now) good friend Zac Boswell gave me this book along with another book by Italo Calvino, If on a winters night a traveler.  We both knew we liked reading and he knew that I wanted to be a writer, so he gave me a book that made him realize writing wasn't for him, a book that he had read about eight times. At the front of Calvino's book Zac wrote, "Kindred Spirits" with his signature below it. Needless to say I knew our conversation and our night of drinking would be good.

Letters to a Young Poet is a book that takes you back in time and slows you down to a pace of reflection. It's a book of letters that responds to an aspiring poet’s work and questions about life. It’s a book that is recommended for people who are stuck in any stage of creation by people that are well versed in the creative process (Seth Godin, James Victore, Etc.)

If you are embarking on any creative endeavor and want to capture the grandeur of the creative life, read Letters to a Young Poet. It’s short—not even a hundred pages—yet it fills your cup up to the brim with purpose and humanity. The way Rilke gives advice while struggling to find his craft is everything you could ever want in an a book of letters (that really is a better version of all the self-helps out there).

"Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

"Leave to your opinions their own quiet undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be pressed or hurried by anything. Everything is gestation and then bringing forth."

Rilke is one of those poets that writers name drop when they talk about someone they use for inspiration. He's a poet that makes you feel like there is a deep wisdom in the world just beneath the surface of everything. He weaves sorrow into joy and acknowledges every facet of life's experience without ever sounding shallow.

Rilke  guides the young poet without lecturing, advises without forcing his will, and at no point does he say he has the final answer.  He seeks to encourage the poet to delve deep into himself and his life around him.  He encourages him to listen to his life. To go out into nature and absorb its beauty until his work is overflowing with images of wonder and truth.

When Zac handed me the book I was blown away by a gesture of someone who barely knew me. After reading the book, I was humbled by the fact that he knew we were kindred spirits. That there was some deep wisdom that he shared with me in the gift of exchange.  It was a night out at Bar Divani where we shared too much food,  a lot of Whiskey, and a ton of wine.  He sealed himself as someone I would forever respect because he was vulnerable. He didn't bullshit me about who he was or what he had learned. The thing about my new friend at that moment was he was my own Rilke, just sitting at the bar with me. He wasn't trying to guide me or force his will he was just being vulnerable and sharing his life's secrets with me. He had listened to his life and found out he wasn't a writer. He was just advising me to do the same, to listen to keep going. He knew without me saying anything that I was, "seeking the answers that could not be given" because in life we sometimes have to live things before we can know the answer to them. Wisdom comes from going through what life throws at you, not by having the right answer up front. In that way, Zac became more than a kindred spirit. He became someone I would trust with my own secrets, like a brother.

Zac and I took breaks throughout the conversion we had at the bar that night to step outside and smoke. I did the same with this book. It was short but it took me about a week to get through. Every response Rilke had to the young poet made me stop and ask myself questions that needed to be asked: Do I believe in the creative process? Can I Imagine myself doing any other thing but write? If so, should I pursue those things? Am I a sensitive observer of the world that empathizes with those around me? My breaks involved standing outside lighting an American Spirit and blowing smoke to mingle with my thoughts that were floating about my head. It was worth every puff.

Go pick it up at your local bookstore.