Poetry Books
Poems
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Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Author: Hermann Hesse
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $11.70
You Save: $ 1.30 ( 10% )
Usually ships in 7 to 12 days
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Author: Hermann Hesse
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Average Customer Rating:
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Poems Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780374526412
ISBN: 0374526419
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 96
Publication Date: 2008-03-18
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780374526412
ISBN: 0374526419
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 96
Publication Date: 2008-03-18
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Editorial Review of Poems
Few American readers seem to be aware that Hermann Hesse, author of the epic novels Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, among many others, also wrote poetry, the best of which the poet James Wright has translated and included in this book. This is a special volume—filled with short, direct poems about love, death, loneliness, the seasons—that is imbued with some of the imagery and feeling of Hesse’s novels but that has a clarity and resonance all its own, a sense of longing for love and for home that is both deceptively simple and deeply moving.
Customer Reviews of Poems
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: ~Excellent Work~
Review: 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!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Poems by Herman Hesse selected and translated by James Wright
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great poetry, unfairly neglected
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Poems of longing and seperation
Review: 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."
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Short & Sweet
Review: 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.
Review Summary: ~Excellent Work~
Review: 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!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Poems by Herman Hesse selected and translated by James Wright
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great poetry, unfairly neglected
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Poems of longing and seperation
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Short & Sweet
Review: 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.