Customer Reviews

Poems

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This is one of my favorite anthologies of poetry, worth reading repeatedly. It captures the spirit of a man, so much like us all, who longs for that something beyond the next hill or behind the wistful smile. How many of us sense intuitively that life is wrapped in a mystery, the veil of separation thin? Hesse's poetry, like his novels, reminds me that even though the inner meaning to life often seems just beyond my reach, it is none the less to be found in the quotidian activities of breathing the fresh air, cutting the finger on the edge of a dish, or listening to Bach as I clean the garage. Written almost 90 years ago, his poetry still rings true to the wandering steppenwolfe in each one of us. "The Gate of Heaven is everywhere."

You may also be captivated by another moving anthology of poetry, "Against Forgetting". It is an anthology of 20th century poems of witness, suffering, and hope.

It is unfortunate, though Hesse always thought of himself first as a poet, readers who are not fluent in German rarely get to read any of his poetry. Highly lyrical and Romantic, Hesse's poems remind his readers that the world he was most comfortable in was the creation of the German poets in the century which preceded him. Highly reminiscent of Holderin with a bit of Goethe thrown in for style, all of the poems selected are eminently readable. James Wright has gone for a literal translation, and in many cases causes the poems to loose the musical charm his words have in German. For those who, like me, are critical of translations, the German text for each poem is also included. Anyone with an interest in Hesse or in the twentieth century canon should defintely read this book.

It shows the excellent ability of Hesse in mastering both styles of writing. His style in writing poems is magnificant, and very clear. I am sure the translation is still weaker than the original german language, but nevertheless it is a highly recommended book to read.

If you are a Hesse fan, you will enjoy this even more.

I will never understand why Hermann Hesse's poetry is as underappreciated as it seems to be. Translated by Pulitzer Prize winning poet James Wright, who set the standard for many aspiring poets in the twentieth century (and whose son later came to regain his father's crown), Hesse's work has an infectious melancholy to it, some of which we see in his fiction and some of which we don't. Many deal with the waste of human life in WW1, but never once does Hesse put on the mantle of a political ideologue: he is always a romantic, and he always knows just how to do it.

I say without exaggeration that his poem "Thinking of a Friend At Night" is one of the best pieces of poetry that I have ever read (certainly equalling anything Wright wrote during his short life.) I have trouble reconciling the translator's introduction, which posits Hesse as "irretrievably adolescent", with this masterpiece:

"In this evil year, autumn comes early.../I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters/The wind on my hat...And you? And you, my friend?/You are standing--maybe--and seeing the sickle moon/Move in a small arc over the forests/And bivouac fire, red in the black valley/You are lying--maybe--in a straw field and sleeping/And dew falls cold on your forehead and battle jacket/It's possible tonight you're on horseback

The farthest outpost, peering along, with a gun in your fist,

Smiling, whispering, to your exhausted horse/

Maybe--I keep imagining--you are spending the night/

As a guest in a strange castle with a park

And writing a letter by candlelight/and tapping

On the piano keys by the window/

Groping for a sound..."

Not many perpetual adolescents could match that. Wright seems more sympathetic to Hesse's poetry than Stephen Koch (who?), the novelist who first convinced the literati that Hesse's image of himself a poet was erroneous. I would disagree. You could even say, after reading this collection, that his poetry rivals some of his fiction. Anyway, this is an important, extremely enjoyable read for anyone who enjoys German Romanticism brought to a more modern level.

AT AGE 76 YRS , I DECIDED TO REREAD SOME OF THE BOOKS THAT HAD A POWERFUL EFFECT ON ME IN MY 20'S . HESSE WAS A FAVORITE. I WAS UNAWARE THAT HE WROTE POETRY.

HIS EPIC NOVELS ,GAVE ME SO MUCH SPIRITUAL AND CREATIVE UNDERSTANDINGS.

I ORDERED THE BOOK OF POETRY BECAUSE I WAS CURIOUS . IT IS A THIN VOLUME, IN GERMAN AND TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH ON THE FACING PAGE.

WHEN I READ HESSE IN MY 20'S I WAS SEARCHING FOR KNOWLEDGE OF MANY THING.

REREADING HESSE NOW, I REALIZE THAT HE WAS TOO SEARCHING FOR HIMSELF.BUT HE WAS OLDER.

KNOWING MORE OF HIS PERSONAL HISTORY, I UNDERSTAND HE WAS A COMPLEX MAN THAT USED HIS WRITING AS A WAY OF FINDING HIMSELF.

HOWEVER, NONE OF THIS MATTERS. HIS WRITING IS STIMULATING IN A VERY CREATIVE WAY.IT STILL STIMULATES ME CREATIVELY . I RECOMMEND HIS POETRY. ALL HIS WRITINGS SHOULD BE READ IF ONLY TO UNDERSTAND FROM WHERE WE WHO ARE IN OUR 70 OR 80'S EVOLVED SOCIALLY.

I had a copy of these many years ago but gave a friend a loan of them. They were never returned to me but I am not surprised.

What a complement to a book. This is my favourite book. There are many, many books that one likes, or needs, or has to read, or really couldn't care less about; not this one. This is real poetry, as when young a teacher spoke of on some dreary wet day, this is the real thing. No vain intellectual pretence, no prolix mania, no boring litanies, no embarrassing mess, no pseudolit arty farty rubbish, real poetry. From the heart and the head, well crafted, fully mature, vintage poetry. Not too many, perhaps too few, poems, as if unfinished. Almost perfect, where 'perfection' is vanity. I'm not giving it away again.

The poems contained in this volume are all from Hesse's early days as a writer before and during the outbreak of World War I. I was struck by the depth and flow of the original language. Wright translated very well and did a great job of trying to incorporate the pathos into his English translations of each poem. A couple themes that became very apparent were a spirituality verging on panentheism, suffering and death . Of those poems that deal primarily with nature (and every poem deals with nature in some fashion), Hesse is clearly intrigued in and convinced about the unity of soul or being. This would be an inkling of the buddhist (and Native American) tendencies of Hesse's storytelling and explorations in *Knulp* and *Siddhartha*. Towards the end of the book, Wright has chosen some poems that deal more directly with war, death, and suffering. They are truly moving and made me think immediately of Wilfred Owen's profound poetry. For true Hesse fans and for those who are only beginning to know the works of this German star of literature, this brief book will give you a moving, albeit melancholic, experience.

Poetry by any writer is truly a subjective exerience and you either feel something from the poems or you don't. Well I must say that this collection of Poetry from Herman Hesse is outstanding. You can't help but to feel the longing and lonliness written in this poems. It is the sad, poor me type of stuff but more like the observations of a man who spent time observing people and speaking for all of us. The poems I have liked the best were---Lonesome Night, Destiny,Lying in Grass and Without You. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading poetry the way it was meant to be written!

If you know and love Herman Hesse through his stories then I would guess you will appreciate this collection of his poems. There are not many poems, that is my only complaint, otherwise the poems are beautiful and the introduction insightful. I am glad to have it on my shelf next to the many books of Herr Hesse's fiction.