Letters to a Young Poet

Letters to a Young Poet Lyrics

To be selected from the following:

Dig deep within yourself for a profound answer.
And if this answer is affirmative,
if you can meet this serious question with a strong and simple "I must,"
then build your life around this necessity;
your life, down to its most insignificant and trivial hour,
must become a sign and testimony to this urge.

– Letter 1

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Go into yourself and explore the depths from which your life springs;
at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create.
Accept it as it sounds, without trying to interpret it.
Perhaps it will turn that you are called to be an artist.

Then accept this destiny and bear it, its burden and its greatness,
without ever asking for the reward that might come from the outside.
For the creative person/creator/artist must be a world unto themself
and find everything within themself and in nature,
to which they have connected themself.

– Letter 1

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Always trust yourself
and your feelings in the face of any such discussion, review, or introduction;
even if you are wrong, the natural growth of your inner life will slowly and over time lead you to other insights.
Allow your judgments their own quiet, undisturbed development,
which, like all progress, must come from deep within
and cannot be forced or accelerated by anything.

Everything must be carried to term and then born.
To let every impression and every seed of a feeling complete itself within oneself,
in the darkness, in the unspeakable, the unconscious, the unattainable to one's own intellect,
and to await the hour of the birth of a new clarity with deep humility and patience:
that alone means living artistically: in understanding as well as in creation.

– Letter 3
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To be an artist means: not to calculate and count;
to ripen like the tree that does not force its sap
and stands confidently in the storms of spring
without the fear that no summer might follow.
He is coming after all.
But he only comes to the patient ones,
who are there as if eternity lay before them, so carefree, quiet, and vast.
I learn this daily,
I learn it through pain,
for which I am grateful: Patience is everything!
– Letter 3

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Be patient with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves
like locked rooms and like books written in a very foreign language.
Do not search now for the answers
that cannot be given to you
because you could not live them.

And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then,
gradually,
without noticing it,
you will one day live your way into the answer.
– Letter 4

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Oh, that man would receive this mystery, with which the earth is filled down to its smallest things, more humbly and bear it more seriously, enduring and feeling how terribly difficult it is, instead of taking it lightly. That he would be reverent toward his fertility, which is but one, whether it be spiritual or physical.

For even intellectual creation stems from the physical, is of the same essence as it, and is merely a gentler, more exquisite, and more eternal repetition of bodily pleasure. The thought of being a creator, of begetting, of shaping, is nothing without its continuous, grand confirmation and realization in the world, nothing without the manifold affirmation from things and animals—and its enjoyment is so indescribably beautiful and rich precisely because it is full of inherited memories from the procreation and birth of millions. In a creative thought, a thousand forgotten nights of love come alive and fill it with majesty and sublimity.

And those who come together in the nights and are intertwined in swaying ecstasy are doing serious work and gathering sweetness, depth, and strength for the song of some future poet who will arise to express unspeakable joys. And they summon the future; and even if they err and embrace blindly, the future still comes, a new human being arises, and on the foundation of chance, which seems to be at work here, the law awakens, by which a resilient, strong seed penetrates to the egg cell that draws it openly towards itself.
– Letter 4

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The world you carry within yourself, and call this thinking whatever you like;
Whether it be a memory of your own childhood or a longing for your own future
just be attentive to what arises within you,
and prioritize it above everything you notice around you.
Your innermost experiences are worthy of all your love;
you must work on them in some way
and not waste too much time and courage
trying to clarify your relationship with other people.
– Letter 6

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Just as bees gather honey, so we gather the sweetest from everything and build Him.

Even with the insignificant, with the inconspicuous (if only it is done out of love),
we begin, with work and with rest afterward, with a silence or with a small, solitary joy,
with everything we do alone, without participants or followers,
we begin Him, whom we will not experience, just as our ancestors could not experience us.
And yet they, these long-gone ones, are within us, as a predisposition,
as a burden on our destiny, as blood that rushes through our veins,

and as a gesture that rises from the depths of time.

– Letter 6

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People have (with the help of conventions) resolved everything in the easiest way, and in the easiest aspect of that way; but it is clear that we must hold fast to what is difficult; everything living holds fast to it, everything in nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is unique from within itself, striving to be so at all costs and against all resistance. We know little, but that we must hold fast to what is difficult is a certainty that will not leave us; It is good to be lonely, for loneliness is difficult; and the fact that something is difficult should be all the more reason for us to do it.

– Letter 7

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To love is also good: for love is difficult. Loving from one person to another: that is perhaps the most difficult task assigned to us, the ultimate, the final test and trial, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet love: they must learn it. With their whole being, with all their strength, gathered around their lonely, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love.

But the learning period is always a long, self-contained period, and so loving extends far into life—: loneliness, intensified and deepened solitude for the one who loves. Love is not, at first, something that means opening up, surrendering, and uniting with another (for what would a union of the unresolved, the unfinished, the still unorganized be?); it is a sublime opportunity for the individual to mature, to become something within themselves, to become a world, to become a world for themselves for the sake of another. It is a great, immodest demand placed upon them, something that singles them out and calls them to greatness.

Only in this sense, as a task, to work on themselves ("to listen and to hammer day and night"), should young people use the love that is given to them. Opening up and surrendering and all forms of togetherness are not for them (who still need to save and accumulate for a long, long time); it is the ultimate goal, perhaps something for which human life is still barely sufficient.

– Letter 7

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We have no reason to distrust our world, for it is not against us.
If it has terrors, they are our terrors;
if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us;
if there are dangers, we must try to love them.

And if we only arrange our lives according to that principle
which advises us always to embrace what is difficult,
then that which now seems most alien to us
will become our most familiar and faithful companion.

How could we forget those ancient myths
that stand at the beginning of all peoples,
the myths of the dragons that transform themselves into princesses at the last moment?

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses,
only waiting to see us beautiful and courageous.
Perhaps everything terrible is, at its deepest core,
the helpless, which longs for our help.
– Letter 8

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What I could say about your inclination to doubt, or about your inability to reconcile your outer and inner life, or about everything else that troubles you—it is always what I have already said: always the wish that you would find enough patience within yourself to endure, and enough simplicity to believe; that you would gain more and more confidence in what is difficult, and in your solitude among others. And otherwise, let life happen. Believe me: life is right, in any case.
– Letter 9

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: All feelings that you gather and cherish are pure; impure is the feeling that only grasps one side of your being and thus distorts you. Everything you can think about in light of your childhood is good. Everything that makes you more than you have been in your best hours so far is right. Every intensification is good if it is in your whole being, if it is not intoxication, not confusion, but joy that one can see to the bottom of. Do you understand what I mean? And your doubt can become a good quality if you cultivate it. It must become knowledgeable, it must become critical.

Ask it, whenever it tries to spoil something for you, why something is ugly; demand proof from it, test it, and you will perhaps find it bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps even rebellious. But do not give in, demand arguments and act in this way, attentively and consistently, every single time, and the day will come when, from a destroyer, it will become one of your best collaborators—perhaps the wisest of all those who are building your life.

-Letter 9

Translation of Letters to a Young Poet

Letters to a Young Poet Trotta – Text and Translation

Program Notes for Letters to a Young Poet

History of Letters to a Young Poet

About the composer of Letters to a Young Poet Michael John Trotta

Fueled by a passion for combining tradition and innovation, American composer Michael John Trotta (b.1978) creates music that resonates with modern audiences around the world. From Carnegie Hall to cathedrals and concert halls around the world, he creates "elegant, singable music with a strong, spiritual heft" (Choir and Organ Magazine).

Seasoned by his experience as a conductor at the primary, secondary, and university levels – as well as a church music director – his works are infused with an "intimate knowledge of the human voice and a rare sensitivity to the capabilities of a choral ensemble" (Fanfare). The "dynamic interplay of time-honored musical gestures with present-day sonorities" (Choral Scholar) create "tender harmonies and a palette of glowing vocal and instrumental colors" (Gramophone).

In addition to a significant output of music for unaccompanied choir, he has written nine choral-orchestral works on a larger scale. His most recent work, "Requiem," was recorded by Tenebrae Choir (Nigel Short, conductor).

His select concert and sacred music is published by Hampton Roads Music Group and is distributed by Excelcia Music. For more information, a complete list of compositions, or to get in touch, visit his official website www.mjtrotta.com.