with poems one accomplishes so little when one writes them early. One should hold off and gather sense and sweetness a whole life long, a long life if possible, and then, right at the end, one could perhaps write ten lines that are good.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of experience and reflection in creating meaningful poetry.
Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that writing poetry too early can result in shallow expressions, advocating instead for a patient accumulation of life experiences and insights over time. By gathering 'sense and sweetness' throughout one's life, a poet may eventually distill profound thoughts and emotions into a few masterful lines, ideally created towards the end of their life, when they possess a richer understanding of the world.
In practice
During a creative writing workshop, to encourage patience in students when creating poetry.
Spring has again returned. _x000D_ _x000D_ The Earth is like a child that knows many poems._x000D_ _x000D_ Many, O so many. For the hardship_x000D_ _x000D_ of such long learning she receives the prize._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ Strict was her teacher. _x000D_ _x000D_ The white in the old man's beard pleases us._x000D_ _x000D_ Now, what to call green, to call blue,_x000D_ _x000D_ we dare to ask: She knows, She knows!
Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.
a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude
He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there's another dog.
The only journey is the one within.
And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been
And from that time on I bathed in the Poem Of the Sea, star-infused and churned into milk, Devouring the green azures; where, entranced in pallid flotsam, A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down.
Music is the one part of the entertainment business where you can't fool anybody into buying a record.
A modern building should derive its architectural significance solely from the vigour and consequence of its own organic proportions. It must be true to itself, logically transparent, and virginal of lies or trivialities.
I hate the idea of theatre just being an evening pastime. It should be emotionally and intellectually demanding. I love football. The level of analysis that you listen to on the terraces is astonishing. If people did that in the theatre... but they don't. They expect to sit back and not participate.
Perceptions are portraits, not photographs, and their form reveals the artist’s hand every bit as much as it reflects the things portrayed
So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.
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