Running for Your Life: If the Greats Were With Us Thursday

I had the most pleasant surprise the other day, when I picked up a slender galley copy of a memoir called “Letter From a Young Poet” by Hyam Plutzik (1911-1962), from the review table at my place of work, the New York Post.

What a read! A perfect anecdote to the loud, self-serving blather of this endless political season. The letter was written by Plutzik in the waning months of his twenties, looking back on what he had done since leaving Trinity College (Connecticut) and his mentor, Odell Shepard.   

Here is a sampling of the foreward by poet Dan Halpern:

The highlight of Shepard’s letter [in reply to Plutzik; it was never posted] is the following passage regarding the nature of writing, of the writer/artist:  “... and hence comes that feeling of being ‘superfluous’... and a sense of utter solitude as a mask of his genius, and soon after, despairing of communication, he comes to write...  For himself alone, in a prolonged soliloquy.” Was Shepard invoking what Rilke wrote forty years earlier in his letter to another young poet, “Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself.”?

This slim volume has treasures galore. This great is certainly deserving of renewed attention.

Next: Running for Your Life: Yes, 21 Days !