Process: Palimpsest

Went to the Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay on a rainy Sunday as part of the 16th annual Festival international de la littérature (FIL) and Les Journées de la culture 2010. Sébastien Ricard read Rainer Maira Rilke’s Lettres à un jeune poète (1929), a collection of ten letters that were addressed to Franz Xaver Kappus over a period of five years (1903 – 1908). The Austro-German poet (1875-1926) did not know this young man of only twenty years of age. The generosity, sincerity and modesty of Rilke's writing is even more moving to me considering he never once met Kappus. Any artist would grow with a mentor such as Rilke; a friend to help quell the unavoidable self-doubt that accompanies creation, which he himself struggled with.

 [...] Cherchez en vous-mêmes. Explorez la raison qui vous commande d'écrire; examinez si elle plonge ses racines au plus profond de votre cour; faites-vous cet aveu : devriez-vous mourir s'il vous était interdit d'écrire. Ceci surtout : demandez-vous à l'heure la plus silencieuse de votre nuit; me faut-il écrire ? Creusez en vous-mêmes à la recherche d'une réponse profonde. Et si celle-ci devait être affirmative, s'il vous était donné d'aller à la rencontre de cette grave question avec un fort et simple "il le faut", alors bâtissez votre vie selon cette nécessité; votre vie, jusqu'en son heure la plus indifférente et la plus infime, doit être le signe et le témoignage de cette impulsion.
— Paris, le 17 février 1903

To be read to is also a pleasure. It is one thing to sink into Rilke’s text and in one’s own thoughts when reading: it is another to let go and listen to someone read the poet's words out loud. Another form of concentration, especially in a crowded room. The act of reading out loud is also one of generosity: the inflections of speech and the rhythm, the voice that needs to project outwards to carry across the room and yet, be delivered in the proper tone that befits the style of writing. Ricard read with a respectful intensity, as if he were merely the messenger for the author’s lucid prose. I found solace in Rilke's quiet passion, his defense of the often-difficult embrace of solitude and contemplation as necessary parts of the creative process.

Rainer Maria Rilke was born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Joseph Maria Rilke. René is the French form of the Roman name Renatus meaning “is reborn”. A tradition existed whereas a baby that was born after the death of a previous child was named René.

It was his friend and lover, the Russian-born intellectual and writer Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937), who suggested the name Rainer. She herself was born as Luíza Gustavovna Salomé. I’ve always been interested in this process of naming; the act of choosing a name or exchanging it for another — like a palimpsest of fleeting placenames on hand drawn maps.