Waffling

No one can advise or help you—no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple, “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into it’s humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one ever tired before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don’t write love poems; avoid those forms that are to facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty—describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth it’s riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the worlds sounds—wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far int he distance.—And out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.

—Rainier Maria Rilke in a letter to Franz Xaver Kappus, February 17, 1903.

It’s Saturday and I still haven’t finalized what I plan to read for the Benefit. I made the mistake of picking up some more Rilke and now am thinking about reading an abridged version of the above passage from Letters To A Young Poet. Then perhaps something else: A poem? Czeslaw Milosz? Billy Collins? Something short for certain, I’m not supposed to use this as a podium to preach from, but I’d certainly like to encourage or inspire.

Perhaps I’m thinking about this too much. I helped Kate, Nate, Rachel and Nick move most of their belongings out of the apartment on Oakdale today. The house is barren now, so little of what was there belonged to me, not that I mind that fact. It’s simply strange to recognize the half-familiar skeleton of the apartment we moved into almost two years ago.

Movement, novelty, once again I am thankful for them. I found a lot of old books in the basement, crumbling in antiquity. I think I may take pages from a few and frame them, put them up around the new apartment when Corey and I get to decorating. Our style will most likely be an exercise in eclectic sparsity.

I think I will go with the Rilke quote in abridged form, short, simple, sweet—then a little poem. I won’t waste much time on stage, plus memorization will be easier, and I do want to do something for Daniel. Mehemedinovic is a little to detached for the event perhaps, a little to cold, I don’t think I’m ready to bring up some of the issues he wrestles with in a lot of his pieces. God knows I’m hardly ready to deal with what Rilke talks about in the above passage. It is a question I will have to ask myself though. That’s a challenge for some point down the road. As for now: I’ll shoot my mouth off about art and then we’ll see if I can manage to keep my foot out of it later.