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How can and how does the poet contribute to the political, historical, and economic tradition of their society?
Often cited as self-help before the genre existed, Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet contain much wisdom in few pages.
Because I’d just read “The Bridge,” which I only half-understood, rendering it sacrosanct to my wide-eyed freshman mind, I’d taken Hart Crane at his word when he wrote in an essay that “Sincerity is essential to all real poetry.” Rilke said it earlier in his own letter-turned-rule-book for all young poets: “Describe your sorrows and desires,…
In 2009, I was at the annual AWP conference in Chicago, heading into a panel session about flash fiction. Coming out of the room from the last session was Audrey Niffenegger who, even without her name tag, would have been distinguishable by her auburn hair. “Excuse me,” I said. “Did you write The Time Traveler’s…
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