Few American readers seem to be aware that Hermann Hesse, author of the epic novelsSteppenwolfandSiddhartha, 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 volumeÂ--filled with short, direct poems about love, death, loneliness, the seasonsÂ--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.