Rating: 
Summary: a study of mentors
Review: The concept of the mentor is fraught these days with the idea of the eager young business school graduate looking to position himself in the light of a beneficent elder who can guide our eager young MBA through the thickets of corporate culture.What, pray tell, does this have to do with the contents of a book by Rilke, you rightly ask yourself. Consider the concept of a mentor: the person who is supposed to guide you, to whom you turn for answers to questions you realize your family is too biased to provide, upon whose experience you rely. Rilke, in this book descibes his aesthetic sense, that is, how the poet is to relate to the world, to make sense of the world about which he writes. It is a beautifully elegant and simple theme. Those seeking mentors would do well to carry this book around and heed its lesson that the mentor you choose should not be the person with the most accolades but the person with the most empathy for you.
Rating:
Summary: A timeless masterpiece
Review: The letters to a young poet are a piece of advise for everybody who is dissatisfied with his life or who maybe just wants to widen its horizon. It is a book that you should read in a period of your life, where you are able to have time for solitude. This book is the embodiement of impressionistic ideas. It is a very personal book and therefore I do not feel able to give a general recommendation and I would also not say that it is a book full of great wisdoms( there are very few of those) but it is a book that shows possible ways of reaching a deeper feeling of life. And it is a book which is full of the wonderfully chosen words of this great great poet: Rainer Maria Rilke
Rating:
Summary: Deep and beautiful poetic letters
Review: The ten letters Rilke wrote to the young poet seeking his guidance and help are deep and moving documents. Rilke truly considers his young correspondent, his verses, and tries to genuinely help him. But what he does in the course of doing so is reveal his own poetic credo and mission. And this poetic mission involves a deepening inward, a dedication to the creative process which is total, and a vision of life as enfolding creation organically. Rilke expresses his loneliness and special understanding of life in these letters. He does this in a language which is a kind of poetic prose in his own unique voice.
Some advice:
"Consider yourself and your feeling right every time with regard to every such argumentation, discussion or introduction; if you are wrong after all, the natural growth of your own inner life will lead you slowly and with time to other insights. Leave to your opinions their own undisturbed development, which like all progress, must come from deep within, and cannot be pressed or hurried by anything. Everything is a gestation and a bringing forth."
"I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!"
"Being an artist means not reckoning and counting but ripening like the tree.."
"There is but one solitude, and that is great, and not easy to bear, and to almost everybody must come hours when they would gladly exchange it for any sort of intercourse, however banal and cheap.."
On Rodin "To stick to my work and have every confidence in it , this I am learning from his great and given example."
Rating:
Summary: Stephen Mitchell's translation is the best
Review: The translation by Mitchell is the most modern and accessible. I recommend this over the rest.
Rating: 
Summary: An Inspiring Read for Anyone
Review: The translation of Rilke's Letter's to a Young Poet is a great read for anyone. It lifts your spirit in your search for that greatness in whatever you do. This is an especially moving book to give to those artists in our lives. Rilke's advice to the young poet about life and work is translated eloquently and breaks into our lives. I recommend this book to anyone who searches for hope and inspiration in whatever you do.
Rating:
Summary: For the Artist
Review: This book first came to my attention when a good friend of mine sent me a quote from it, which has since become my life quote ("Be patient toward everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves..Do not search for the answers which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything...Live the questions now") Since I heard this quote, I tracked down a copy of the book after searching a half dozen bookstores and libraries, and it was worth every minute of work to find it. This book has been put on the highest level of appreciation in my mind, up there with Richard Bach's 'Illusion' and 'One'; my two other favorite books. Rilke's book was written for the artist; the person who wants to live life to its fullest and explore both the inner and outer world and their connections. Although, as another reviewer said, this book will not be fully appreciated by all readers, it is a must read for everyone, especially those who appreciate spirituality, art and living.
Rating:
Summary: For the Artist
Review: This book first came to my attention when a good friend of mine sent me a quote from it, which has since become my life quote ("Be patient toward everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves..Do not search for the answers which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything...Live the questions now") Since I heard this quote, I tracked down a copy of the book after searching a half dozen bookstores and libraries, and it was worth every minute of work to find it. This book has been put on the highest level of appreciation in my mind, up there with Richard Bach's 'Illusion' and 'One'; my two other favorite books. Rilke's book was written for the artist; the person who wants to live life to its fullest and explore both the inner and outer world and their connections. Although, as another reviewer said, this book will not be fully appreciated by all readers, it is a must read for everyone, especially those who appreciate spirituality, art and living.
Rating:
Summary: Touching and timeless
Review: This book is a touching portrait of what it means to be an artist. Rilke's words are magic as they weave an image of solitude, love, life, and art. This is a collection of 10 letters that Rilke wrote to a young poet who sought his advice. The words of wisdom from the letters are valid for anyone who loves any type of art whether it be writing, painting, etc, and he bestows upon us the wisdom to become a true artist even though it can be difficult and lonely at times.
Rating:
Summary: a true gift
Review: This book was a gift from a friend at a time when I was in need of doing some soul searching. Rilke's words draw deep into your core and stir thoughts and emotions you never thought possible. His thoughts and philosophies on mankind, nature, love and one's self are beauty in their purist form. I read this book from time to time to renew my faith in mankind and myself.
Rating:
Summary: My Bible
Review: This book was my bible through four emotionally turbulent years at university. My freshman English professor, a poet himself, lent it to me after reading in my class-assigned journal that I felt lonely and adrift in my first semester of college--an act of kindness that I have never forgotten. This book taught me to love solitude, to appreciate sadness, and to seek growth. It opened my eyes to ways of seeing and living that had never occurred to me. Rilke is a very metaphysical poet, and in this book he speaks of wisdom, art, and transcendence with characteristic grace. This book also contains some surprisingly progressive ideas on love, sex, and gender. I strongly recommend it to young people starting college as an excellent introduction into the so-called real world.
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