Preface: I am translating Letters to a Young Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, M.D. Herter Norton: 9780393310399: Amazon.com: Books. It’s a beautiful book, but very dense. I am translating it to a blog post series hoping to churn it into an easily consumed butter instead of the choppy dense planetoid that it is. The first four paragraphs of letter one. Originally written in Paris, Frebrary 17th, 1903. I ran it through Google translate on French mode to smooth the otherwise stop-start-y nature of translation.

This is something that I needed to say. I wanted to thank you for sharing something beautiful with me. I’m not enough of a good reviewer to break down this poetry in a constructive statement to help you grow. If I tried, the results would be an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Understanding is difficult. Most people think that art is speakable , but nobody has the same words . Language is a bridge between two cultures, weak and rickety it is. Most experiences occur in a solitary fashion dream.

Art is a symptom of these extensive experiments to the outside. Many people approach a painting and say, “I do not understand. “ It is much easier for them to say, “I do not understand your art” than it is for me to hear, “I do not understand you.” Because I try so hard to be understood.

Art is a paralell discussion trying to say the unsayable faster , faster, better, stronger. These conversations occur while you eat breakfast, go to practice improvisation, listening to albums while translating difficult text .

So, about your poetry, it has not its own style, but it has hidden meanings that speak to me, that seem to say “potential” between the lines. It’s like a rough draft of a song of my heart.

Needless to say, the poems do not stand out on their own , but I can not stress the faults that you so easily point out. Nobody can tell you about your art. They can not reject or accept what you offer . You must look within for words.