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Paris
February 17, 1903

Dear Sir,

Your letter arrived just a few days ago. I want to thank you for the great confidence you have placed in me. That is all I can do. I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsay able than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.

With this note as a preface, may I just tell you that your verses have no style of their own, although they do have silent and hidden beginnings of something personal. I feel this most clearly in the last poem, "My Soul." There, some thing of your own is trying to become word and melody. And in the lovely poem "To Leopardi" a kind of kinship with that great, solitary figure does perhaps appear. Nevertheless, the poems are not yet anything in themselves, not yet any thing independent, even the last one and the one to Leopardi. Your kind letter, which accompanied them managed to make clear to me various faults that I felt in reading your verses, though I am not able to name them specifically.

You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must", then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don't write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes a great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sound - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. And if out of , this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, dear Sir, I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to, the question of whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.

But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn't write at all). Nevertheless, even then, this self searching that I ask of you will not have been for nothing. Your life will still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide is what I wish for you, more than I can say.

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn't disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.

It was a pleasure for me to find in your letter the name of Professor Horacek; I have great reverence for that kind, learned man, and a gratitude that has lasted through the years. Will you please tell him how I feel; it is very good of him to still think of me, and I appreciate it.

The poem that you entrusted me with, I am sending back to you. And I thank you once more for your questions and sincere trust, of which, by answering as honestly as I can, I have tried to make myself a little worthier than I, as a stranger, really am.

Yours very truly,

Rainer Maria Rilke

Text about the department for PR.

"Initiated, but not lead, by artist Tobias Karlsson a new department is formed in the Gerrit Rietveld Academy: The Temporary Department of Time and Space. This department will not be burdened by the structure of the Academy it is housed in. It chooses not to know of its hierarchy. The students working in the Department will reflect on and respond to this new-found space. Shaping it until it, in time, disintegrates; leaving behind an exhibition in W139 (date?)."

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I have here a few suggestions for changes. I have written out the name of the department more times (good for PR I think, hammer in the message.. or something) there are some other suggestions of more practical character. Other changes are: SEEKS TO rather then WILL NOT, maybe that is just me being to careful? I also added OR THE WORLD after ACADEMY - I am not sure why?!? And also I changed THE STUDENTS to MEMEBRS - with the thought that it leaves the positioning of the members (us) more open and we can choose from day to day how we want to identify.

"The Temporary Department of Time and Space seeks to not be burdened by the structure of the academy or the world it is housed in. It chooses not to know of its hierarchy. At the W139 the members of The Temporary Department of Time and Space will during the week of 8-12 of April reflect on and respond to this new-found space, shaping it until it, in time, disintegrates; leaving behind an exhibition, opening Friday 12 of April 20.00 closing Sunday 14 of April ??.?? (time?)."

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Even though I find it very clear, I would put the focus of the text more on what the Department does instead of what it doesn't. For example, "It chooses not to know of its hierarchy" I think that by mentioning something, you automatically give wait to it, bringing it to life in your mind. Since Hierarchy doesn't exist in the department I don't see any profit by even denying it. Like imagine, we never had anything to do with this concept; it doesn't exist for us.

"Initiated, but not lead, by artist Tobias Karlsson a new department is formed at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy: The Temporary Department of Time and Space.

The Temporary Department of Time and Space although recognizing the structure of the academy or the world it is housed in, seeks to keep an open attitude towards them.

At the W139 the members of The Temporary Department of Time and Space will during the week of 8-12 of April reflect on and respond to this new-found habit, shaping it until it disintegrates; leaving behind an exhibition, opening Friday 12 of April 20.00 closing Sunday 14 of April ??.?? (time?)."

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I like the point of formulating things in a positive manner rather than saying what we don't want... I just suggest small rearrangement in the sentence, as follows ) I also just saw that change of SPACE to HABIT - I think I like it. I just made a small change after there..:

"Initiated, but not lead, by artist Tobias Karlsson a new department is formed at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy: The Temporary Department of Time and Space.

Although recognizing the structures (hierarchical and others) of the academy and the world it is housed in, The Temporary Department of Time and Space seeks to keep an open attitude towards them.

At the W139 the members of The Temporary Department of Time and Space will during the week of 8-12 of April reflect on and respond to this new-found habit, shaping the department until it disintegrates; leaving behind an exhibition, opening Friday 12 of April 20.00 closing Sunday 14 of April ??.?? (time?)."

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Don't know if it's actually making it more complicated but here is my modification of the text...

"Initiated, but not lead, by artist Tobias Karlsson, a new department is formed at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy: The Temporary Department of Time and Space.

Recognizing the existing hierarchical structure of the world it is housed in, The Temporary Department of Time and Space seeks to conduct a collective concentration by its own process of decentralization. The paradoxical nature of becoming while un-becoming addresses the unavoidable question of with what, why, and how we claim our time and space with respect to a universal human generosity: being here, in this moment, occupying the space.

At the W139 the members of The Temporary Department of Time and Space will during the week of 8-12 of April reflect on and respond to this new-found habitat, shaping the department until it disintegrates; leaving behind an exhibition, opening Friday 12 of April 20.00 closing Sunday 14 of April 18.00."

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