How It Works:

1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Glorious World

I feel it again and again, no mattcr
Whether I am old or young:
A mountain range in the night,
On the balcony a silent woman,
A white street in the moonliglht curving gently away
That tears my heart with longing out of my body.

Oh burning world, oh white woman on the balcony,
Baying dog in the valley, train rolling far away,
What liars you were, how bitterly you deceived me,
Yet you turn out to be any sweetest dream and illusion.

Often I tried the frightening way of "reality,"
Where things that count are profession, law, fashion, finance.
But disillusioned and freed I fled away alone
To the other side, the place of dreams and blessed folly.

Sultry wind in the tree at night, dark gypsy woman,
World full of foolish yearning and the poet's breath,
Glorious world I always come back to,
Where your heat lightning beckons me,
where your voice
calls!

—Hermann Hesse
https://hesse.projects.gss.ucsb.edu/glorious-world.html

If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

The next Read-Around is 12/4/25 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

It's easy to get caught up in the troubles of our troubling world, to fall pray to the myopia of our circumstances, and let ourselves be tossed on a sea of reflexive emotion, especially when bombarded with bad news and provocative media. There is no denying the reality that our world has taken a turn for the worse on almost every front: climate disasters, mass extinctions, wars, floods, fires, political unrest, and other nuclear threats. It’s easy, when caught up in the troubles, to knuckle under the “frightening way of ‘reality’” as Hermann Hesse describes in his poem, Glorious World. We enter a survival mode and our attention narrows to whatever we need to get by. Perhaps it was Hesse’s sensitive soul or his unwavering commitment to “the other side” of life that allowed him to witness glorious moments of beauty and longing despite the demands of the world and the harshness of “reality” (he lived through both WWI and WWII; and he opposed the Nazi’s, moved to Switzerland, and gave refuge to artists and writers.) Perhaps the dearest faculty of the soul is the capacity for acts of kindness in the worst of times, to find beauty in the torrents of nature, and feel joy in longings that may never be fulfilled.

Prompt Ideas

1. Journal or write a poem about an enduring positive feeling that you have experienced again and again whether old or young.

2. Write about an experience of deep longing—one that had the power to pull your heart with longing toward the object of desire. You can use Hesse phrase as a prompt: It tore my heart with longing out of my body when…

3. Journal or write a poem about that includes 3 simple things you observed in nature recently. Start with a simple description, like a mountain range in the night, a train rolling in the distance, and then write about what that evokes in you.

4. In what way do your dreams and illusions deceive you and in what way do they entice you or deepen you?

5. What would you include in the “frightening way of ‘reality,’” Contrast this with “the other side” —What Hesse calls the place of dreams and blessed folly.

6. Journal or write of a time you indulged in a “blessed folly.” What might a world full of "foolish yearning and the poet’s breath" be to you?

7. When and how does the “glorious world” beckon you or call to you.

8. Write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.