Letters From A Young Poet
Dear Mr. Rilke, Well, Netherlands, 2024
My name is Nina Fauci, and I am a student studying travel writing over the past five weeks during a summer semester abroad with Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. I am writing to you in the year 2024, seated at the wooden desk of my dorm room. It’s located inside the main tower of a 13th century castle, nestled on the flat, sprawling green plains of the Netherlands in Well, a village in the nation’s southernmost region of Limburg.
One of the reasons I’m writing this letter is to inform you about the status of the ten letters you sent to Franz Kappus, a fifteen-year-old Austrian boy attending military school, conflicted in a struggle between pursuing life as serving in the military, per his father’s wishes, or as a writer and poet, the life he craved for himself. They were published as a book in 1929, three years after your death, and graced with the title, Briefe an Einen Jungen Dichter (Letters to a Young Poet). While it doesn’t include Kappus’s letters to you, your replies to him are now preserved in ink on paper in the hands of millions of readers and young writers internationally.
I could imagine you may feel that the publication of these private letters between Kappus and you may be an invasion of your privacy. Even so, I hope you will, at the very least, smile from your grave in Austria knowing that it has been a renowned piece of literature for years.
I stumbled upon your work in the form of a slim, 51-page, black and white copy published by Penguin Classics (there have been many new publishers since your lifetime), in a Waterstones store in Amsterdam while on an academic excursion with my classmates. I read it in its entirety over the course of this one day. A few days after I finished your book, I was inspired and confident enough to decline the opportunity to join my friends on their trips to different countries and instead, stay at the castle and plan a day trip during which I would travel alone to a new city in this foreign country for the very first time in my life.
You’re probably wondering, Why is a random 21-year-old student writing this letter to me about herself, my letters, and the choice she made to travel somewhere alone?
Because, similar to Kappus, I have been seeking advice to expand the horizons of my creativity and my comfort zone to ultimately make me a better writer while strengthening the relationship I have with myself. Being alone is not always easy, especially in a new place. But your words successfully saved me from this limited way of thinking: “Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart…then approach nature. Then try, like the first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose.”
The second reason I’m writing to you is to share and reflect on how your wise advice sparked a flame of creativity in me, providing the foundation I needed to enjoy this day of solo travel as much as I could; a journey I’ve detailed in the paragraphs that follow. Letters To a Young Poet served as a muse for my own art and mindset while the sequence of events of my trip played out over the course of one day. I dedicated the entirety of it to actively practicing the art of solitude you deem crucial: “But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.
* * *
My destination was Maastricht, the capital city of Limburg, nestled close to the borders of Germany and Belgium. Getting there would entail close to a three-hour long journey. My goal was to spend the entire day in the city, exploring a brand new place, and to write about what I experienced, as I experienced it.
The night before, I stayed up late anticipating my journey. Still, I woke up early on that
Friday morning in July, in anticipation of taking an early morning bus to the nearby town of Venlo. In my rush to leave and catch it, I forgot my keys in my room. Going back for them cost me 2 minutes, which, consequently, made me miss the bus. Clouded by a haze of frustration, I attempted to comfort myself by harnessing your energy: “We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.”
I surrendered myself to your sage advice. Sitting on the bus, I leapt introspectively into my mind and stared out the window. I allowed my eyes, guiding the pen in my hand, to be hypnotized through my written reactions to endless forests of trees with leaves shaded a muted green, their roots and branches in swirls, contorting in every possible direction like a restless cage of snakes. Plots of land eroded into soft contours of pillows and cradles, and abandoned fields indicated a visceral connection to their past lives by the weathered, rusted metal of the black entry gates.
When I walked out of the train station in Maastricht around noon, I traversed the Sint Servaasbrug, one of five bridges here that connect the two main parts of the city. One of the oldest bridges in the Netherlands, this stone structure dates back to the 13th century, adorned by its elegant arches that stretch across the Maas. As I crossed, I couldn’t help but marvel at the blend of historical charm in tandem with the air of a modern vibrance. Cyclists and pedestrians shared the path, and from where I stopped and stood on the bridge, I had a perfect preview of where I’d spend the day. Picturesque riverbanks ran parallel with a skyline dotted with church spires and historic buildings. The gentle passage of boats below and the bustling life around me made it clear: I had finally arrived in a place where the past and present could seamlessly coexist.
As I explored the city, I recalled the phrase that appears on the very first page of your book, a quote of yours of which I am extremely fond “What matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now.” This quote prompted me to sit down somewhere and take in my surroundings. In the late afternoon, I found an empty dilapidated wooden bench in the Stadspark along the harbor where I planned to stay for a while. The park was resplendent with pebbled walking paths, a calm pond, and ancient ruins of Roman architecture. The forts around the water are extensions of tall walls built to defend against attacks by the French during a medieval war, with the river forming part of a defensive moat. Here, I was accompanied only by a serene soundtrack of the chirps of small birds from high up in the trees, and the sight of many couples relaxing on blankets in the center of the green grass.
Their presence only made me more aware of my own solitude, and how far away I was from home. As I was stung by stabs of doubt, I repeated to myself your advice: “Your doubts can become a good quality if you school them. They must grow to be knowledgeable and critical. As soon as they begin to spoil something for you, demand hard evidence, test them, and you will find them at a loss and short of an answer. But do not give in, act with this kind of attentiveness and consistency every single time, and the day will come when instead of being demolishers they will be among your best workers in building your life.”
Leaving the park as the sun began to make its slow descent above me, I felt more at peace with my choice to travel solo. I headed to the Boekhandel Dominicanen in the historic Vrijthof Square. It’s in my blood to check out the local bookstore scene wherever I am, and similar to many of my favorite bookstores closer to home in Boston and Providence, this literary landmark is independently owned, embodying well-kept secrets only confessed to those eager enough to wander inside. The elegant vastness of the Boekhandel Domincanen, housed inside a repurposed two-hundred year old church, was nothing like I’d ever experienced before. Walking inside, I was transported to a bygone era while exploring the aisles set amidst a backdrop of soaring, dark Gothic arches and colorful stained glass windows.
Books transport me to faraway places, and your voice in my head stressed how important it is to “Live in books for a while. Learn from them what seems to be worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid to you thousands of times, and however your life may turn out – this love, I am sure of it, will run through the weave of your becoming as one of the most important threads of all among the other threads of your experiences,disappointments, and joys.” As I leisurely browsed the shelves spread among three floors, I was overcome with my strong, lifelong love affair with literature, and how reading has become crucial to the strides I’ve taken and made as a writer.
As the evening approached, and it started to get late, I strolled over to Al Mercato, a highly rated Italian restaurant in Maastricht Centre on Marktstraat, to treat myself to a welldeserved dinner after a long, yet eye-opening day. This experience of dining solo opened me up to the fact that it truly is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It was a practice of solitude and I experienced an immense satisfaction during my experience — from the ambience of Italian music playing and the flavors and textures of the prosecco I sipped and the margherita pizza I ate, to the conversations I eavesdropped on around me. Without someone to entertain, I sat silently with my thoughts and meditated on what I observed around me. Although, the realization that I was not alone at all, but part of a community of people indulging in the same pleasures I was, made me feel more comfortable.
After dinner, the lunar glow of the celestial moon against a blue-black sky above, reflected on the surface of dark waters below, signaled to me that I should make my way back to school. I walked through the winding streets of Maastricht; corridors between buildings that were once crowded and loud now fell silent. I crossed back over the bridge, straight ahead to the train station. Leaving Maastricht was a bittersweet departure; it signaled the conclusion of my day, but I left on a high note tuned by the great pride in myself for venturing out of my comfort zone, completely alone.
I boarded the train that would take me to Venlo, where I would transfer to the 83 bus back to school in the castle of Well. As I started up the driveway to the castle’s white gates, the final words of your tenth letter resonated within me, providing a warm blanket of comfort only you could provide, a wisdom proven to transcend space and time: “The same desire that you might find enough patience in you to endure, and simplicity enough to have faith; that you might gain more and more trust in what is hard and in your own loneliness among other people. I leave you with this; let life take its course. Believe me: life is right, whatever happens.” Mr. Rilke, as I conclude this day and my letter to you, I want to thank you. It was a pleasure to spend today, in my solitude, guided by the power of your words and spirit that will feed the creative flame in me forever.
Sincerely,
Nina
