by Charles Simic
Doubles
In my youth, women often took me aside
And told me I reminded them of
A dead brother, an uncle, a late lover.
Some of them wore beards.
One lay with slashed wrists in a tub.
Another of my doubles had gone for a walk
And never came back from the woods.
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Herman Hesse
Poet and novelist Hermann Hesse was born July 2, 1877 to a family of missionaries in southern Germany. Hesse was deeply influenced by the philosophers Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, but it was his fascination with Buddhism that led him to write one of most well-known works, Siddhartha. Along with several of his other works, Siddhartha reflects Hesse's lifelong quest to find enlightenment. In 1946, Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Below, an excerpt from Siddhartha....
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