I came to write The Heart of a Nymph after revisiting Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. “What is happening in your innermost self is worthy of your entire love, somehow you must find a way to work at it, and not lose too much time or too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people” (Letter 6, p42). Something clicked and I took out my composition notebook and wrote it out. I was trying to dig something out that has been roaming around in me for awhile. An Ode to a Rugged Reality will start to roll out tomorrow to book end this August and be a companion to The Heart of a Nymph. It’s mostly inspired by Rilke’s sentiments to Kappus in his last letter, “I am glad, in a word, that you have overcome the danger of landing in one of those professions, and are solitary and courageous, somewhere in a rugged reality”. I wanted to explore what this rugged reality of mine looks like, to be a little more honest and honor it somehow. I was going to expand to 15 poems to fill the rest of the month instead of 7 but I couldn’t find it in me to and it didn’t feel right. I tend to give myself certain amount of lines, either 8 or 10. In the case of Ode to a Rugged Reality, I only gave myself 10 lines, if I can’t figure it in one chunk then I need to figure it out in the next. Or else I’ll just go on and on and on lol epic poems are great, I just don’t want to write one or I’ll never finish anything.

But anyways, thanks for reading, and I hope you are doing well in this rugged reality.