“Gestutzte Eiche” by Hermann Hesse

This new entry in our series on Oak Poetry features a poem by Hermann Hesse, which uses the image of a heavily pruned oak to reflect on endurance, renewal, and the stubborn will to keep growing despite hardship.

If you would like to propose a poem for inclusion in this series, please click here.

You can hear a reading of the poem by Fritz Stavenhagen here.

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) was a German‑born Swiss novelist, poet, and painter whose work explores individuality, spirituality, and the search for meaning. Raised in the Black Forest in a scholarly, religious family, he developed early interests in literature and introspection. His major novels—Siddhartha, Der Steppenwolf, and Das Glasperlenspiel—made him one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century and earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. Alongside his fiction, Hesse wrote extensively about nature, producing poetry that often uses trees as symbols of endurance and renewal. He spent his later years in Montagnola, Switzerland.