April’s Open Book Club: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Open Book Club meets next on Monday, April 7.

Two In-Person Sessions:
10 – 11 am at Morningside Branch Library
5 to 6 pm at the Aalfs Downtown Library (free parking in the evening)

April’s title is Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

The great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Those letters, still a fresh source of inspiration and insight, are accompanied here by a chronicle of Rilke’s life that shows what he was experiencing in his own relationship to life and work when he wrote them.

Can’t make it to the in-person meetings? Sign up to attend the Virtual Book Club via Zoom on April 9 from 12 noon to 1 pm – Get Registered Here!