Letters to a Young Poet is one of Rilke’s most popular books…well known to poets in their youth and an ideal handbook for beginning writers. Mark Harman’s burnished, elegant new translation is the fifth English version, and likely to become the standard one… Above all, these letters give the lie to the idea of Rilke as hopelessly self-regarding and cut off from authentic, ‘ordinary’ life. His tone may be elevated and his manner at times that of a dandy—he was elevated, he was a dandy—but the advice purveyed in these letters, and the observations and aperçus that they throw off, contain true wisdom, and are anything but platitudinous. Franz Kappus was a fortunate young man to have found such a correspondent, and we are fortunate in his good fortune.

The perfect gift for any aspiring poet or, indeed, for anyone interested in good writing, is Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, newly translated by Mark Harman. In this elegant little volume, Rilke writes to 19-year-old Franz Kappus about literature, life, and the poet’s vocation with wisdom and penetrating insight.

This fresh translation of Rilke’s famous letters reminds us anew that Rilke is addressing not just his young correspondent but everyone, and that his advice is not only about how to write poems but how to live a deliberate, meaningful life. In these overly excited times, it is inspiring to listen to the patient counsel of this meditative man, this champion of solitude.

If I could recommend only one book to a young writer, it would be Rilke’s perpetually fresh and penetrating Letters to a Young Poet, especially in Mark Harman’s lucid new translation, which so capably captures the original’s radiant intimacy. This small but inexhaustible volume belongs on every writer’s bookshelf.