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The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
Yehuda Amichai is Israel's most popular poet as well as a literary figure of international reputation. In this revised and expanded collection, renowned translators Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell have selected Amichai's most beloved and enduring poems, including forty new poems from his recent work.
from Tourists :Once I was sitting on the steps near the gate at David's Citadel and I put down my two heavy baskets beside me. A group of tourists stood there around their guide, and I became their point of reference. "You see that man over there with the baskets? A little to the right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. A little to the right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!" I said to Redemption will come only when they are told, "Do you see that arch over there from the Roman period? It doesn't matter, but near it, a little to the left and then down a bit, there's a man who has just bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
from Tourists :Once I was sitting on the steps near the gate at David's Citadel and I put down my two heavy baskets beside me. A group of tourists stood there around their guide, and I became their point of reference. "You see that man over there with the baskets? A little to the right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. A little to the right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!" I said to Redemption will come only when they are told, "Do you see that arch over there from the Roman period? It doesn't matter, but near it, a little to the left and then down a bit, there's a man who has just bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
Yehuda Amichai
120 books143 followersYehuda Amichai (Hebrew: יהודה עמיחי; 3 May 1924 – 22 September 2000) was an Israeli poet. Amichai is considered by many, both in Israel and internationally, as Israel's greatest modern poet. He was also one of the first to write in colloquial Hebrew.
Yehuda Amichai [was] for generations the most prominent poet in Israel, and one of the leading figures in world poetry since the mid-1960s.
(The Times, London, Oct. 2000)
He was awarded the 1957 Shlonsky Prize, the 1969 Brenner Prize, 1976 Bialik Prize, and 1982 Israel Prize. He also won international poetry prizes: 1994 – Malraux Prize: International Book Fair (France), 1995 – Macedonia`s Golden Wreath Award: International Poetry Festival, and more.
Yehuda Amichai was born in Würzburg, Germany, to an Orthodox Jewish family, and was raised speaking both Hebrew and German.
Amichai immigrated with his family at the age of 11 to Petah Tikva in Mandate Palestine in 1935, moving to Jerusalem in 1936. He attended Ma'aleh, a religious high school in Jerusalem. He was a member of the Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah, the defense force of the Jewish community in Mandate Palestine. As a young man he volunteered and fought in World War II as a member of the British Army, and in the Negev on the southern front in the Israeli War of Independence.
After discharge from the British Army in 1946, Amichai was a student at David Yellin Teachers College in Jerusalem, and became a teacher in Haifa. After the War of Independence, Amichai studied Bible and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Encouraged by one of his professors at Hebrew University, he published his first book of poetry, Now and in Other Days, in 1955.
In 1956, Amichai served in the Sinai War, and in 1973 he served in the Yom Kippur War. Amichai published his first novel, Not of This Time, Not of This Place, in 1963. It was about a young Israeli who was born in Germany, and after World War II, and the war of Independence in Israel, he visits his hometown in Germany, recalls his childhood, trying to make sense of the world that created the Holocaust. His second novel, Mi Yitneni Malon, about an Israeli poet living in New York, was published in 1971 while Amichai was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a poet in residence at New York University in 1987. For many years he taught literature in an Israeli seminar for teachers, and at the Hebrew University to students from abroad.
Amichai was invited in 1994 by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to read from his poems at the ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
"God has pity on kindergarten children" was one of the poems he read. This poem is inscribed on a wall in the Rabin Museum in Tel-Aviv. There are Streets on his name in cities in Israel, and also one in Wurzburg.
Amichai was married twice. First to Tamar Horn, with whom he had one son, and then to Chana Sokolov; they had one son and one daughter. His two sons were Ron and David, and his daughter was Emmanuella.
He died of cancer in 2000, at age 76.
Yehuda Amichai [was] for generations the most prominent poet in Israel, and one of the leading figures in world poetry since the mid-1960s.
(The Times, London, Oct. 2000)
He was awarded the 1957 Shlonsky Prize, the 1969 Brenner Prize, 1976 Bialik Prize, and 1982 Israel Prize. He also won international poetry prizes: 1994 – Malraux Prize: International Book Fair (France), 1995 – Macedonia`s Golden Wreath Award: International Poetry Festival, and more.
Yehuda Amichai was born in Würzburg, Germany, to an Orthodox Jewish family, and was raised speaking both Hebrew and German.
Amichai immigrated with his family at the age of 11 to Petah Tikva in Mandate Palestine in 1935, moving to Jerusalem in 1936. He attended Ma'aleh, a religious high school in Jerusalem. He was a member of the Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah, the defense force of the Jewish community in Mandate Palestine. As a young man he volunteered and fought in World War II as a member of the British Army, and in the Negev on the southern front in the Israeli War of Independence.
After discharge from the British Army in 1946, Amichai was a student at David Yellin Teachers College in Jerusalem, and became a teacher in Haifa. After the War of Independence, Amichai studied Bible and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Encouraged by one of his professors at Hebrew University, he published his first book of poetry, Now and in Other Days, in 1955.
In 1956, Amichai served in the Sinai War, and in 1973 he served in the Yom Kippur War. Amichai published his first novel, Not of This Time, Not of This Place, in 1963. It was about a young Israeli who was born in Germany, and after World War II, and the war of Independence in Israel, he visits his hometown in Germany, recalls his childhood, trying to make sense of the world that created the Holocaust. His second novel, Mi Yitneni Malon, about an Israeli poet living in New York, was published in 1971 while Amichai was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a poet in residence at New York University in 1987. For many years he taught literature in an Israeli seminar for teachers, and at the Hebrew University to students from abroad.
Amichai was invited in 1994 by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to read from his poems at the ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
"God has pity on kindergarten children" was one of the poems he read. This poem is inscribed on a wall in the Rabin Museum in Tel-Aviv. There are Streets on his name in cities in Israel, and also one in Wurzburg.
Amichai was married twice. First to Tamar Horn, with whom he had one son, and then to Chana Sokolov; they had one son and one daughter. His two sons were Ron and David, and his daughter was Emmanuella.
He died of cancer in 2000, at age 76.
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December 23, 2020
Yehuda Amichai was born in Germany as Ludwig Pfeuffer. In 1936, he and his family emigrated to Mandate Palestine. Ludwig was 12 years old. He changed his name to Yehuda Amichai ("my people live") around 1946. His poems in this selected volume draw on his experiences over a lifetime, as a son, a father, a soldier, a husband, a patriot, and as an Israeli Jew and Jerusalemite.
I opened this book hoping to find poems that reflected some of my experiences living in Jerusalem and visiting the country over many years. I found them. I found the white stones of Jerusalem, The Old City and it’s gates, the hot sun and the rain, the golden desert at sundown, the mountains, the valleys and the hills where flower blooms and the sea which stretches for miles along Israel’s coast; and the Israeli people, the children, parents, family and friends and the elderly, many of whom have holocaust eyes. The cafes with flirting couples are there side by side with old men chatting together and reading their newspapers over a cup of tea. I also found strong Jewish/Israeli identity, the history of wars, recent and long past, the Arab/Israeli conflict, bombs, blood, and death. This is the Israeli experience, all the good and bad jumbled up together and Amichai’s poems express this perfectly.
But, of course, Amichai was not writing about my experiences he was writing about his own. The most prominent themes of his poems not mentioned above are time and memory, love and loss, patriotism, fatherhood, aging and mortality, loss of faith and resentment of social institutions.
Many of these poems have an ironic or humorous tone.. Others deal with philosophical issues such as the meaning of life and death. Amichai’s poems can be enigmatic at first but with reading (and looking up biblical and historical references) I felt the full force of their meaning.
Though his poems are very much about Amichai’s personal experiences they are universal, easily understood and felt by anyone. I imagine that is one of the reasons Amichai is considered not only the best Israeli poet but one of the leading poets worldwide.
I read this book of poems within a 24 hour period. I would not recommend that anyone else do the same. By the end I was emotionally exhausted. These poems elicited feelings of love and loss, nostalgia and belonging. passion and tenderness, grief and sadness, fear, and terror.
The following is a poem about how social institutions can tear apart love (of any kind).
"They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantle us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and a woman.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.
Amichai can break your heart and mend it at the same time:
ALMOST A LOVE POEM
If my parents and yours
hadn't emigrated to the Land of Israel
in 1936,
we would have met in 1944
there. On the ramp at Auschwitz.
I at twenty,
you at five.
Where's your mama,
your tateh?
What your name?
Hanaleh.
A good example of a poem with a universal theme:
To Bake the Bread of Yearning
The last time I went to see my child
he was still eating pablum. Now, sadly,
bread and meat, with knife and fork,
with manners that are already preparing him
to die quietly, politely.
He thinks I'm a sailor, knows I don't have a ship
or a sea; only great distances and winds.
The movements of my father's body in prayer
and mine in lovemaking
are already folded in his small body.
To be an adult means
to bake the bread of yearning
all night long, with reddened face
in front of the fire. My child sees.
And the powerful spell See you soon
which he's learned to say
works only among the dead.
This last poem speaks for itself:
An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion
An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
Both in their temporary failure.
Our two voices met above
The Sultan's Pool in the valley between us.
Neither of us wants the boy or the goat
To get caught in the wheels
Of the "Had Gadya" machine.*
Afterward we found them among the bushes,
And our voices came back inside us
Laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or for a child has always been
The beginning of a new religion in these mountains.
* Had Gadya" means "one little goat, or "one kid." It is also a song sung at the end of the Passover Seder. This Aramaic/Hebrew song traces a cascade of events beginning with a baby goat being devoured by a cat. Each verse adds a link to the chain reaction; a dog comes and bites the cat, a stick beats the dog, fire burns the stick, water puts out the fire … and on it goes. Each successive verse gets longer until the fable ends in a final stroke; God kills the Death Angel.
Amichai’s metaphor of "the terrible Had Gadya machine" is perfect for the Arab-Israeli conflict, with violence generated and regenerated by self-righteous rage, desperation and vengeance.
I opened this book hoping to find poems that reflected some of my experiences living in Jerusalem and visiting the country over many years. I found them. I found the white stones of Jerusalem, The Old City and it’s gates, the hot sun and the rain, the golden desert at sundown, the mountains, the valleys and the hills where flower blooms and the sea which stretches for miles along Israel’s coast; and the Israeli people, the children, parents, family and friends and the elderly, many of whom have holocaust eyes. The cafes with flirting couples are there side by side with old men chatting together and reading their newspapers over a cup of tea. I also found strong Jewish/Israeli identity, the history of wars, recent and long past, the Arab/Israeli conflict, bombs, blood, and death. This is the Israeli experience, all the good and bad jumbled up together and Amichai’s poems express this perfectly.
But, of course, Amichai was not writing about my experiences he was writing about his own. The most prominent themes of his poems not mentioned above are time and memory, love and loss, patriotism, fatherhood, aging and mortality, loss of faith and resentment of social institutions.
Many of these poems have an ironic or humorous tone.. Others deal with philosophical issues such as the meaning of life and death. Amichai’s poems can be enigmatic at first but with reading (and looking up biblical and historical references) I felt the full force of their meaning.
Though his poems are very much about Amichai’s personal experiences they are universal, easily understood and felt by anyone. I imagine that is one of the reasons Amichai is considered not only the best Israeli poet but one of the leading poets worldwide.
I read this book of poems within a 24 hour period. I would not recommend that anyone else do the same. By the end I was emotionally exhausted. These poems elicited feelings of love and loss, nostalgia and belonging. passion and tenderness, grief and sadness, fear, and terror.
The following is a poem about how social institutions can tear apart love (of any kind).
"They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantle us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and a woman.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.
Amichai can break your heart and mend it at the same time:
ALMOST A LOVE POEM
If my parents and yours
hadn't emigrated to the Land of Israel
in 1936,
we would have met in 1944
there. On the ramp at Auschwitz.
I at twenty,
you at five.
Where's your mama,
your tateh?
What your name?
Hanaleh.
A good example of a poem with a universal theme:
To Bake the Bread of Yearning
The last time I went to see my child
he was still eating pablum. Now, sadly,
bread and meat, with knife and fork,
with manners that are already preparing him
to die quietly, politely.
He thinks I'm a sailor, knows I don't have a ship
or a sea; only great distances and winds.
The movements of my father's body in prayer
and mine in lovemaking
are already folded in his small body.
To be an adult means
to bake the bread of yearning
all night long, with reddened face
in front of the fire. My child sees.
And the powerful spell See you soon
which he's learned to say
works only among the dead.
This last poem speaks for itself:
An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion
An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
Both in their temporary failure.
Our two voices met above
The Sultan's Pool in the valley between us.
Neither of us wants the boy or the goat
To get caught in the wheels
Of the "Had Gadya" machine.*
Afterward we found them among the bushes,
And our voices came back inside us
Laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or for a child has always been
The beginning of a new religion in these mountains.
* Had Gadya" means "one little goat, or "one kid." It is also a song sung at the end of the Passover Seder. This Aramaic/Hebrew song traces a cascade of events beginning with a baby goat being devoured by a cat. Each verse adds a link to the chain reaction; a dog comes and bites the cat, a stick beats the dog, fire burns the stick, water puts out the fire … and on it goes. Each successive verse gets longer until the fable ends in a final stroke; God kills the Death Angel.
Amichai’s metaphor of "the terrible Had Gadya machine" is perfect for the Arab-Israeli conflict, with violence generated and regenerated by self-righteous rage, desperation and vengeance.
April 11, 2023
از زخم سینهام
دزدانه به جهان مینگرد
خداوند.
*
من همه چیز را
دربارۀ شکوفهدهی درخت حیات میدانم
شکل برگهایش
ساز و کار نظام ریشههایش
انواع آفتهایش
من متخصص گیاهشناسی درخت حیاتم
هنوز بر رویش پژوهش میکنم
و همواره خواهم کرد
تا روزی که بمیرم.
*
به ریشۀ ستبر درختان نمیرسد
اما تنها ریشهایست که داریم
خونهای ریخته بر خاک.
*
فرجام خداوند
فرارسیده است
همچون فرجام درختان، کوهها، خورشید و ماه
که دست از پرستششان داشتند
چون خداوند را پرستیدن گرفتند.
اما او نیز با ما خواهد ماند
همچون درختان، همچون کوهها
خورشید، ��اه و ستارگان.
*
همچنان که از هم دور میشویم
کلمه بر کلمه میافزاییم
کلمات و جملات بلند و به قاعده
تا نزدیک هم بودیم
تنها سکوت بین بدنهایمان فاصله میانداخت.
*
در هم آمیختیم
چون حاملان مقدّس عرش
با چهار سر و شش بال
در هم آمیختیم
چون سربروسِ دو سر
و ملحفه چروکید
اما نه از پیری، که از طراوت.
*
هفت زیرپوش مچاله
در اطراف بسترت، برای
هفت روزی که اینجا بودیم
هفت رز پژمرده
به هفت رنگ مختلف.
*
لنگر کشتی به گل نشسته
زینت حیاط خانهها میشود
قلبهای ما نیز
تنها گردنبندهایی خواهد شد
آویخته در درون، در میان رؤیا و خون.
*
سخن گفتن، اینک، با این زبان خسته
کنده شده از خوابگاهش در کتاب مقدس
کورکورانه هرولهکنان از دهانی به دهانی
زبانی که خدا و معجزات را وصف میکرد، میگوید:
ماشین، بمب، خدا.
حروف مربع میخواهند بسته بمانند
هر حرف چون خانهای محفوظ
که تا همیشه بتوان در آن ماند و خوابید.
دزدانه به جهان مینگرد
خداوند.
*
من همه چیز را
دربارۀ شکوفهدهی درخت حیات میدانم
شکل برگهایش
ساز و کار نظام ریشههایش
انواع آفتهایش
من متخصص گیاهشناسی درخت حیاتم
هنوز بر رویش پژوهش میکنم
و همواره خواهم کرد
تا روزی که بمیرم.
*
به ریشۀ ستبر درختان نمیرسد
اما تنها ریشهایست که داریم
خونهای ریخته بر خاک.
*
فرجام خداوند
فرارسیده است
همچون فرجام درختان، کوهها، خورشید و ماه
که دست از پرستششان داشتند
چون خداوند را پرستیدن گرفتند.
اما او نیز با ما خواهد ماند
همچون درختان، همچون کوهها
خورشید، ��اه و ستارگان.
*
همچنان که از هم دور میشویم
کلمه بر کلمه میافزاییم
کلمات و جملات بلند و به قاعده
تا نزدیک هم بودیم
تنها سکوت بین بدنهایمان فاصله میانداخت.
*
در هم آمیختیم
چون حاملان مقدّس عرش
با چهار سر و شش بال
در هم آمیختیم
چون سربروسِ دو سر
و ملحفه چروکید
اما نه از پیری، که از طراوت.
*
هفت زیرپوش مچاله
در اطراف بسترت، برای
هفت روزی که اینجا بودیم
هفت رز پژمرده
به هفت رنگ مختلف.
*
لنگر کشتی به گل نشسته
زینت حیاط خانهها میشود
قلبهای ما نیز
تنها گردنبندهایی خواهد شد
آویخته در درون، در میان رؤیا و خون.
*
سخن گفتن، اینک، با این زبان خسته
کنده شده از خوابگاهش در کتاب مقدس
کورکورانه هرولهکنان از دهانی به دهانی
زبانی که خدا و معجزات را وصف میکرد، میگوید:
ماشین، بمب، خدا.
حروف مربع میخواهند بسته بمانند
هر حرف چون خانهای محفوظ
که تا همیشه بتوان در آن ماند و خوابید.
March 29, 2015
AMALGAMATING AGONY AND ECSTASY: POETRY OF YEHUDA AMICHAI
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) is a national icon in Israeli. No funeral, festivity or wedding in Israel passes without the fragrant whiff of his poetry. Everything he has witnessed in his life have filtered out through the prism of his consciousness and Jewish sensibilities as poetry. One can even say he was the liberator of Jewish language shackled in the shibboleth of rigor and torpor. Employing the style and idiom of a post-modernist, Amichai’s poems resoundingly reflect the human drama with an acute sense of the epoch he lived. Love, death, war, eroticism, history memory, patriotism, alienation, spirituality –all these and many more are the deep undercurrents in his oeuvre.
Amicha is the most autobiographical of all the poets I have read so far. In an interview with Lawrence Joseph in ‘The Paris review’, Yehuda Amichai said: I never felt any sense of separation between an inner and outer world, and I don’t feel it now. Real poets, I think, turn the outer world into the inner world and vice versa. Poets always have to be outside, in the world—a poet can’t close himself in his studio. His workshop is in his head and he has to be sensitive to words and how words apply to realities. It’s a state of mind. A poet’s state of mind is seeing the world with a kind of double exposure, seeing undertones and overtones, seeing the world as it is. Every intelligent person, whether he’s an artist or not—a mathematician, a doctor, a scientist—possesses a poetic way of seeing and describing the world.
His poetry is volatile, heart-burdened, ironic,nostalgic, irreverent, funny, angry, gentle and tender. At times I feel he is the Stravinsky in poetry in the way he startles us with unpredictable metaphors. His poetry is a symphony of our existence. Even with all his oddities, the beauty is that this poet remains remarkably accessible, imaginative, unburdened by artificiality and often conversational in his poems.
It is his historical consciousness that makes Amichai’s poems at once tragic and humorous, tender and tough, direct and intricate. Al though he has fought in two wars, against the Germans and against the Arabs, he cannot accept the simplifications of nationalisms. He sometimes finds a detachment from his own country. The poem cited below shows the seamless meshing of his personal life with that of his country. It is soaked in simplicity and directness of emotions.
From WHEN I WAS YOUNG THE WHOLE COUNTRY WAS YOUNG
When I was young, the whole country was young. And my father
was everyone’s father. When I was happy, the country
was happy too, and when I jumped on her, she jumped
under me. The grass that covered her in spring
softened me too, and the dry earth of summer hurt me
like my own cracked footsoles.
When I first fell in love, they proclaimed
her independence, and when my hair
fluttered in the breeze, so did her flags.
When I fought in the war, she fought, when I got up
she got up too, and when I sank
she began to sink with me.
Now I’m beginning to come apart from all that:
like something that’s glued, after the glue dries out,
I’m getting detached and curling into myself.
What I like best about Amichai is that he doesn’t put on the image of a great poet. His self-deprecating humour is indeed a humanizer. His natural instinct is to describe what is tangible, immediate, and concrete and the need to reach out to his backdrops. Therefore his sorrows become our sorrows. The next two poems will illustrate it.
From FOR MY BIRTHDAY
Thirty-two times I went out into my life,
each time causing less pain to my mother,
less to other people,
more to myself.
Thirty-two times I have put on the world
and still it doesn't fit me.
It weighs me down,
unlike the coat that now takes the shape of my body
and is comfortable
and will gradually wear out.
In a number of poems, Amichai focusses on the holiness of all aspects of existence-Physical, sensual and spiritual. The need to display a tough, macho exterior image is contrasted with inner feelings as sensitive and delicate as those of Jewish women who faint during wedding in this poem. One cannot resist noticing the heart-breaking line - Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself in this poem.
YOU MUSTN'T SHOW WEAKNESS
You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.
You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to make a list
of all the things you can load
in a baby carriage without a baby.
This is the way things stand now:
if I pull out the stopper
after pampering myself in the bath,
I'm afraid that all of Jerusalem, and with it the whole world,
will drain out into the huge darkness.
In the daytime I lay traps for my memories
and at night I work in the Balaam Mills,
turning curse into blessing and blessing into curse.
And don't ever show weakness.
Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I'm like an ambulance
on two legs, hauling the patient
inside me to Last Aid
with the wailing of cry of a siren,
and people think it's ordinary speech.
Memory and forgetfulness are a persistent theme in his poetry. In a short later poem, "forgetting someone", the confusions of love are felt in ordinary ways: "Forgetting someone/is like forgetting to turn off the light in the backyard/ so it stays lit all the next day/But then it is the light/that makes you remember". In another poem he says:
AN ETERNAL WINDOW
In the garden I once heard
a song or an ancient blessing.
And above the dark trees
a window is always lit, in memory
of the face that looked out of it,
and that face too
was in memory of another
lit window
Amichai’s gift for understatement is most evident in the poem below. Perhaps readers can identify with it as we live in times of war and terrorism. Amicahi wonderfully demonstrates in this poem how a bomb's detonation included the entire world in its circle.
THE DIAMETER OF THE BOMB
‘
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.
Amichai starts the description of the bomb explosion with a recitation of cold, technical facts -the diameter of the bomb, its range and the number of casualties. It gives the mind something concrete, objective to grasp when trying to contemplate the enormity of the murder. But then, unexpectedly and rather jarringly, he segues into a personal sketch of one of the victims and her grieving lover, "the solitary man mourning her death / at the distant shores of a country far across the sea"--two lines I find especially poignant. These cold numerical facts are intended only to make us realize that the diameter increases infinitely to include those affected: four dead and eleven wounded, two hospitals and a graveyard, the solitary man, the crying orphans, and God. It is incredible how a small explosion can reach a man in a country across the sea, and God in the heavens.
Amichai's conversational, somewhat detached tone ("And I won't even mention...") throughout the poem, intensifies the horror of sudden violent death and the raw emotional loss that accompanies. As the poet concludes, taken far enough, the dimensions of these numerical measurements become too vast, too mysterious, for either human or divine calculus. How far this circle of loss extend? I don't know. Ultimately the poet says, it is ' a circle with no end'.
How odd it is to consider why oftentimes it requires a tragedy before man can be aware that each one is inextricably connected to and responsible for each other and to the entire universe. What an individual does or fails to do, no matter how small, has repercussions to the same universe beyond what one consciously know.
“God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children” is one of his most quoted and anthologized poems. The poem also typifies Amichai’s inclination, especially in his early poetry, to challenge and to transform in an acutely ironic fashion the traditional perception of God as merciful. Amichai had a complex relationship with Orthodox Judaism and conducted a grand theological argument with the Almighty, rejecting any submissive reverence and the certainties of an exclusive faith.
GOD HAS PITY ON KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN
God has pity on kindergarten children.
He has less pity on school children
And on grownups he has no pity at all,
he leaves them alone,
and sometimes they must crawl on all fours
in the burning sand
to reach the first–aid station
covered with blood.
But perhaps he will watch over true lovers
and have mercy on them and shelter them
like a tree over the old man
sleeping on a public bench.
Perhaps we too will give them
the last rare coins of charity
that Mother handed down to us
so that their happiness may protect us
now and on other days.
The poem typifies Amichai’s inclination, especially in his early poetry, to challenge and to transform in an acutely ironic fashion the traditional perception of God as merciful. Amichai had a complex relationship with Orthodox Judaism and rejected a submissive reverence and the certainties of an exclusive faith. The title “God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children” positions the reader to expect a poem praising God’s benevolence, but it quickly develops into a searing tract about a universe devoid of higher kindliness.
At first we are told that God does show mercy, but it is dispensed in a discriminatory manner, only to those who are regarded as totally pure—kindergarten children and, to a lesser extent, schoolchildren. In a sense it is not just God who offers his concern and protection to the innocent and powerless, but also the institutions of home, kindergarten, and school that proffer a shield. On the other hand, God denies the vulnerable grownups (embodied here as soldiers) of his sanctuary, even though soldiers are customarily in more peril than small children. Amichai marshals the image of soldiers crawling on all fours in the hot sands toward the first aid station, bloodied and wounded, to underline the idea that combatants (in this instance, during the war of independence) were not the objects of God’s watchfulness. This particular image struck a chord with Israelis, who were all too well acquainted with the high cost of successive wars. In this poem the soldiers, left entirely alone, have reverted to their infant state, dragging themselves as children do to be tended to. More broadly, this “last station” could symbolize the final destination for all of us.
The second stanza convey the message that omnipotence does not have a duty to provide protection against danger or death. In the end, only love acts as a buffer for suffering adults. Only “true lovers” may well be deserving of God’s love. The idea developed in this poem—that only love can afford redemption that only love will drive away pain and cruelty—is a recurring theme in the Amichai poetic corpus.
The last section of the poem suggests that generosity and empathy handed down in the form of “coins of compassion” by a mother (or mother figure) may generate happiness for the adults shunned by a discriminating God. Acts of maternal charity, Amichai says, will lead in turn to our protection. The referencing of “the mother” evokes the association of “motherly love” with its accompanying warmth and affection, remembered from childhood.
The poem avers that human beings should not rely on God for refuge or mercy, but must be responsible for their own safe conduct. Amichai is asserting, contra Jewish religious dogma, that human goodness, kindness, and love are far superior shields and can function as a worthy substitute for God’s uncertain protection. Compassion is to be reclaimed here on Earth, rather than from the heavens, so evidently impoverished of kindness.
The above poem can be classified as a modern opus, an existential meditation on the relationship between us and our creator. It confirms God’s presence in human affairs, but demonstrates humankind’s loss of faith and profound disappointment in what can only be seen as divine indifference to the uncertain lives of human beings.
I had mentioned earlier the ‘tender’ aspect of his poetry. Here is a poem that I posted in Facebook on a Father’s day for which I received very good feedback. Amichai had brimming admiration and veneration for his father. This poem pay tributes to paternity.
LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
On summer nights I sleep naked
in Jerusalem .My bed
stands on the brink of a deep valley
without rolling down into it
In the daytime I walk around with the Ten
Commandments on my lips
like a tune someone hums to himself.
O touch me, touch me, you good woman!
That’s not a scar you feel under my skirt, that’s
a letter of recommendation, folded up tight,
from my father:
"All the same, he’s a good boy, and full of love"
I remember my father waking me or early prayers.
He would do it by gently stroking my forehead, not
by tearing away the blanket.
Since then I love him even more .
And as his reward, may he be wakened
gently and with love
On the Day of Resurrection.
The poem resonates with warmth, nostalgia and reverence for his dead father. It deeply conveys his sacred passion, unabashed feeling and tenderness. One has the feeling that, for Amichai, the road to childhood is still open.
Playful wit doesn't work against the feeling, but in tandem with it in this poem. Unlike many modern poets, Amichai is a deep-rooted emotional poet who never shies away from displaying his emotions. It is this emotional fervour that alchemizes a love line like "O touch me, touch me, you good woman!" into a memorial poem and prayer for the dead. To feel that the poet himself is ‘a letter of recommendation’ has a rare breath of warmth. I like the sweet, gentle and religious father in his poem.
On a lighter note, it made me smile to read the line-He would do it by gently stroking my forehead, not by tearing away the blanket. - as tearing the blanket away is still one last act I do to wake up my two lazy boys.
The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai is translated by two different translators, unfortunately with differing sensibilities, Stephen Mitchel (poems written till 1969) and Chana Bloch (poems after 19690) . While Chana Bloch beautifully captures the essence of Amichai, Mitchell’s translation is more literal. I am saying this as I have another poetry collection of Amichai’s early poetry exquisitely translated by Assia Gutmann and my comparison showed the pitfalls of Mitchell. Here is the translation of one of his most famous poems by Assia Gutmann
A PITY. WE WERE SUCH A GOOD INVENTION
They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.
This poem is wonderful in its directness and profound simplicity, its unique mixture of the erotic and the political, its subtle tone of outrage and nostalgia. The poem starts off with the image two lovers torn apart (by the inhuman societal force ‘they’) and concludes with the image (metaphor of aeroplane) of what they created. In Mitchell’s translation, he uses ‘doctors’ instead of surgeon thus losing the sarcasm. The ending in Mitchell’s translation is ‘we even flew’ and that vital ‘a little’ is missing. Despite this, as a single volume covering the poetry of his lifetime, this book is probably the best that I would recommend.
To sum up, Yehuda Amichai was one of the greatest artists of 20th century and his poetry is a forceful and fanciful fusion of the beauty and pain of our existence.
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) is a national icon in Israeli. No funeral, festivity or wedding in Israel passes without the fragrant whiff of his poetry. Everything he has witnessed in his life have filtered out through the prism of his consciousness and Jewish sensibilities as poetry. One can even say he was the liberator of Jewish language shackled in the shibboleth of rigor and torpor. Employing the style and idiom of a post-modernist, Amichai’s poems resoundingly reflect the human drama with an acute sense of the epoch he lived. Love, death, war, eroticism, history memory, patriotism, alienation, spirituality –all these and many more are the deep undercurrents in his oeuvre.
Amicha is the most autobiographical of all the poets I have read so far. In an interview with Lawrence Joseph in ‘The Paris review’, Yehuda Amichai said: I never felt any sense of separation between an inner and outer world, and I don’t feel it now. Real poets, I think, turn the outer world into the inner world and vice versa. Poets always have to be outside, in the world—a poet can’t close himself in his studio. His workshop is in his head and he has to be sensitive to words and how words apply to realities. It’s a state of mind. A poet’s state of mind is seeing the world with a kind of double exposure, seeing undertones and overtones, seeing the world as it is. Every intelligent person, whether he’s an artist or not—a mathematician, a doctor, a scientist—possesses a poetic way of seeing and describing the world.
His poetry is volatile, heart-burdened, ironic,nostalgic, irreverent, funny, angry, gentle and tender. At times I feel he is the Stravinsky in poetry in the way he startles us with unpredictable metaphors. His poetry is a symphony of our existence. Even with all his oddities, the beauty is that this poet remains remarkably accessible, imaginative, unburdened by artificiality and often conversational in his poems.
It is his historical consciousness that makes Amichai’s poems at once tragic and humorous, tender and tough, direct and intricate. Al though he has fought in two wars, against the Germans and against the Arabs, he cannot accept the simplifications of nationalisms. He sometimes finds a detachment from his own country. The poem cited below shows the seamless meshing of his personal life with that of his country. It is soaked in simplicity and directness of emotions.
From WHEN I WAS YOUNG THE WHOLE COUNTRY WAS YOUNG
When I was young, the whole country was young. And my father
was everyone’s father. When I was happy, the country
was happy too, and when I jumped on her, she jumped
under me. The grass that covered her in spring
softened me too, and the dry earth of summer hurt me
like my own cracked footsoles.
When I first fell in love, they proclaimed
her independence, and when my hair
fluttered in the breeze, so did her flags.
When I fought in the war, she fought, when I got up
she got up too, and when I sank
she began to sink with me.
Now I’m beginning to come apart from all that:
like something that’s glued, after the glue dries out,
I’m getting detached and curling into myself.
What I like best about Amichai is that he doesn’t put on the image of a great poet. His self-deprecating humour is indeed a humanizer. His natural instinct is to describe what is tangible, immediate, and concrete and the need to reach out to his backdrops. Therefore his sorrows become our sorrows. The next two poems will illustrate it.
From FOR MY BIRTHDAY
Thirty-two times I went out into my life,
each time causing less pain to my mother,
less to other people,
more to myself.
Thirty-two times I have put on the world
and still it doesn't fit me.
It weighs me down,
unlike the coat that now takes the shape of my body
and is comfortable
and will gradually wear out.
In a number of poems, Amichai focusses on the holiness of all aspects of existence-Physical, sensual and spiritual. The need to display a tough, macho exterior image is contrasted with inner feelings as sensitive and delicate as those of Jewish women who faint during wedding in this poem. One cannot resist noticing the heart-breaking line - Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself in this poem.
YOU MUSTN'T SHOW WEAKNESS
You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.
You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to make a list
of all the things you can load
in a baby carriage without a baby.
This is the way things stand now:
if I pull out the stopper
after pampering myself in the bath,
I'm afraid that all of Jerusalem, and with it the whole world,
will drain out into the huge darkness.
In the daytime I lay traps for my memories
and at night I work in the Balaam Mills,
turning curse into blessing and blessing into curse.
And don't ever show weakness.
Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I'm like an ambulance
on two legs, hauling the patient
inside me to Last Aid
with the wailing of cry of a siren,
and people think it's ordinary speech.
Memory and forgetfulness are a persistent theme in his poetry. In a short later poem, "forgetting someone", the confusions of love are felt in ordinary ways: "Forgetting someone/is like forgetting to turn off the light in the backyard/ so it stays lit all the next day/But then it is the light/that makes you remember". In another poem he says:
AN ETERNAL WINDOW
In the garden I once heard
a song or an ancient blessing.
And above the dark trees
a window is always lit, in memory
of the face that looked out of it,
and that face too
was in memory of another
lit window
Amichai’s gift for understatement is most evident in the poem below. Perhaps readers can identify with it as we live in times of war and terrorism. Amicahi wonderfully demonstrates in this poem how a bomb's detonation included the entire world in its circle.
THE DIAMETER OF THE BOMB
‘
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.
Amichai starts the description of the bomb explosion with a recitation of cold, technical facts -the diameter of the bomb, its range and the number of casualties. It gives the mind something concrete, objective to grasp when trying to contemplate the enormity of the murder. But then, unexpectedly and rather jarringly, he segues into a personal sketch of one of the victims and her grieving lover, "the solitary man mourning her death / at the distant shores of a country far across the sea"--two lines I find especially poignant. These cold numerical facts are intended only to make us realize that the diameter increases infinitely to include those affected: four dead and eleven wounded, two hospitals and a graveyard, the solitary man, the crying orphans, and God. It is incredible how a small explosion can reach a man in a country across the sea, and God in the heavens.
Amichai's conversational, somewhat detached tone ("And I won't even mention...") throughout the poem, intensifies the horror of sudden violent death and the raw emotional loss that accompanies. As the poet concludes, taken far enough, the dimensions of these numerical measurements become too vast, too mysterious, for either human or divine calculus. How far this circle of loss extend? I don't know. Ultimately the poet says, it is ' a circle with no end'.
How odd it is to consider why oftentimes it requires a tragedy before man can be aware that each one is inextricably connected to and responsible for each other and to the entire universe. What an individual does or fails to do, no matter how small, has repercussions to the same universe beyond what one consciously know.
“God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children” is one of his most quoted and anthologized poems. The poem also typifies Amichai’s inclination, especially in his early poetry, to challenge and to transform in an acutely ironic fashion the traditional perception of God as merciful. Amichai had a complex relationship with Orthodox Judaism and conducted a grand theological argument with the Almighty, rejecting any submissive reverence and the certainties of an exclusive faith.
GOD HAS PITY ON KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN
God has pity on kindergarten children.
He has less pity on school children
And on grownups he has no pity at all,
he leaves them alone,
and sometimes they must crawl on all fours
in the burning sand
to reach the first–aid station
covered with blood.
But perhaps he will watch over true lovers
and have mercy on them and shelter them
like a tree over the old man
sleeping on a public bench.
Perhaps we too will give them
the last rare coins of charity
that Mother handed down to us
so that their happiness may protect us
now and on other days.
The poem typifies Amichai’s inclination, especially in his early poetry, to challenge and to transform in an acutely ironic fashion the traditional perception of God as merciful. Amichai had a complex relationship with Orthodox Judaism and rejected a submissive reverence and the certainties of an exclusive faith. The title “God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children” positions the reader to expect a poem praising God’s benevolence, but it quickly develops into a searing tract about a universe devoid of higher kindliness.
At first we are told that God does show mercy, but it is dispensed in a discriminatory manner, only to those who are regarded as totally pure—kindergarten children and, to a lesser extent, schoolchildren. In a sense it is not just God who offers his concern and protection to the innocent and powerless, but also the institutions of home, kindergarten, and school that proffer a shield. On the other hand, God denies the vulnerable grownups (embodied here as soldiers) of his sanctuary, even though soldiers are customarily in more peril than small children. Amichai marshals the image of soldiers crawling on all fours in the hot sands toward the first aid station, bloodied and wounded, to underline the idea that combatants (in this instance, during the war of independence) were not the objects of God’s watchfulness. This particular image struck a chord with Israelis, who were all too well acquainted with the high cost of successive wars. In this poem the soldiers, left entirely alone, have reverted to their infant state, dragging themselves as children do to be tended to. More broadly, this “last station” could symbolize the final destination for all of us.
The second stanza convey the message that omnipotence does not have a duty to provide protection against danger or death. In the end, only love acts as a buffer for suffering adults. Only “true lovers” may well be deserving of God’s love. The idea developed in this poem—that only love can afford redemption that only love will drive away pain and cruelty—is a recurring theme in the Amichai poetic corpus.
The last section of the poem suggests that generosity and empathy handed down in the form of “coins of compassion” by a mother (or mother figure) may generate happiness for the adults shunned by a discriminating God. Acts of maternal charity, Amichai says, will lead in turn to our protection. The referencing of “the mother” evokes the association of “motherly love” with its accompanying warmth and affection, remembered from childhood.
The poem avers that human beings should not rely on God for refuge or mercy, but must be responsible for their own safe conduct. Amichai is asserting, contra Jewish religious dogma, that human goodness, kindness, and love are far superior shields and can function as a worthy substitute for God’s uncertain protection. Compassion is to be reclaimed here on Earth, rather than from the heavens, so evidently impoverished of kindness.
The above poem can be classified as a modern opus, an existential meditation on the relationship between us and our creator. It confirms God’s presence in human affairs, but demonstrates humankind’s loss of faith and profound disappointment in what can only be seen as divine indifference to the uncertain lives of human beings.
I had mentioned earlier the ‘tender’ aspect of his poetry. Here is a poem that I posted in Facebook on a Father’s day for which I received very good feedback. Amichai had brimming admiration and veneration for his father. This poem pay tributes to paternity.
LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
On summer nights I sleep naked
in Jerusalem .My bed
stands on the brink of a deep valley
without rolling down into it
In the daytime I walk around with the Ten
Commandments on my lips
like a tune someone hums to himself.
O touch me, touch me, you good woman!
That’s not a scar you feel under my skirt, that’s
a letter of recommendation, folded up tight,
from my father:
"All the same, he’s a good boy, and full of love"
I remember my father waking me or early prayers.
He would do it by gently stroking my forehead, not
by tearing away the blanket.
Since then I love him even more .
And as his reward, may he be wakened
gently and with love
On the Day of Resurrection.
The poem resonates with warmth, nostalgia and reverence for his dead father. It deeply conveys his sacred passion, unabashed feeling and tenderness. One has the feeling that, for Amichai, the road to childhood is still open.
Playful wit doesn't work against the feeling, but in tandem with it in this poem. Unlike many modern poets, Amichai is a deep-rooted emotional poet who never shies away from displaying his emotions. It is this emotional fervour that alchemizes a love line like "O touch me, touch me, you good woman!" into a memorial poem and prayer for the dead. To feel that the poet himself is ‘a letter of recommendation’ has a rare breath of warmth. I like the sweet, gentle and religious father in his poem.
On a lighter note, it made me smile to read the line-He would do it by gently stroking my forehead, not by tearing away the blanket. - as tearing the blanket away is still one last act I do to wake up my two lazy boys.
The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai is translated by two different translators, unfortunately with differing sensibilities, Stephen Mitchel (poems written till 1969) and Chana Bloch (poems after 19690) . While Chana Bloch beautifully captures the essence of Amichai, Mitchell’s translation is more literal. I am saying this as I have another poetry collection of Amichai’s early poetry exquisitely translated by Assia Gutmann and my comparison showed the pitfalls of Mitchell. Here is the translation of one of his most famous poems by Assia Gutmann
A PITY. WE WERE SUCH A GOOD INVENTION
They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.
This poem is wonderful in its directness and profound simplicity, its unique mixture of the erotic and the political, its subtle tone of outrage and nostalgia. The poem starts off with the image two lovers torn apart (by the inhuman societal force ‘they’) and concludes with the image (metaphor of aeroplane) of what they created. In Mitchell’s translation, he uses ‘doctors’ instead of surgeon thus losing the sarcasm. The ending in Mitchell’s translation is ‘we even flew’ and that vital ‘a little’ is missing. Despite this, as a single volume covering the poetry of his lifetime, this book is probably the best that I would recommend.
To sum up, Yehuda Amichai was one of the greatest artists of 20th century and his poetry is a forceful and fanciful fusion of the beauty and pain of our existence.
January 30, 2020
Like many poets, Amichai improves with rereading. Thus, I went back and reread some of the poems that appealed to me or that had an aura of mystery.
That said, this poet is approachable. Nothing crazy cryptic like some modern-day poets who are writing for each other (apparently) to see who can out "Huh?" the other. I concede to them their academies and towers of ivory, is all I can say.
Amichai's range is impressive. Poems about nature, Israel, war, the Bible, life and death, love, sex, food, family, and... hell with it. Everything is fair game, really. He didn't pull his punches.
Here's a sample poem showing his style and interests:
To Bake the Bread of Yearning
The last time I went to see my child
he was still eating pablum. Now, sadly,
bread and meat, with knife and fork,
with manners that are already preparing him
to die quietly, politely.
He thinks I'm a sailor, knows I don't have a ship
or a sea; only great distances and winds.
The movements of my father's body in prayer
and mine in lovemaking
are already folded in his small body.
To be an adult means
to bake the bread of yearning
all night long, with reddened face
in front of the fire. My child sees.
And the powerful spell See you soon
which he's learned to say
works only among the dead.
That said, this poet is approachable. Nothing crazy cryptic like some modern-day poets who are writing for each other (apparently) to see who can out "Huh?" the other. I concede to them their academies and towers of ivory, is all I can say.
Amichai's range is impressive. Poems about nature, Israel, war, the Bible, life and death, love, sex, food, family, and... hell with it. Everything is fair game, really. He didn't pull his punches.
Here's a sample poem showing his style and interests:
To Bake the Bread of Yearning
The last time I went to see my child
he was still eating pablum. Now, sadly,
bread and meat, with knife and fork,
with manners that are already preparing him
to die quietly, politely.
He thinks I'm a sailor, knows I don't have a ship
or a sea; only great distances and winds.
The movements of my father's body in prayer
and mine in lovemaking
are already folded in his small body.
To be an adult means
to bake the bread of yearning
all night long, with reddened face
in front of the fire. My child sees.
And the powerful spell See you soon
which he's learned to say
works only among the dead.
November 29, 2019
Brilliant architecture of juxtaposed edgy images built precisely with the technique of irregular refraction of the thought on the superficial layer of the quotidian to mould what seems to be little objects that once touched open widely gates towards the abysmal depths of sensing- the beauty inside is breathtaking !
The Smell if Gasoline Ascends in my Nose
“....
Look, the olive-tree no longer grieves--
it knows there are seasons and a man must leave,
stand by my side and dry your face now
and smile as if in a family photo.
I've packed my wrinkled shirts and my trouble.
I will never forget you, girl of my final
window in front of the deserts that are
empty of windows, filled with war.
You used to laugh but now you keep quiet,
the beloved country never cries out,
the wind will rustle in the dry leaves soon--
when will I sleep beside you again?
In the earth there are raw materials that, unlike us,
have not been taken out of the darkness,
the army jet makes peace in the heaven”
‘...
Let’s not build a house, let’s not pave a road
Let’s make a house that’s folded inside the heart....”
The Smell if Gasoline Ascends in my Nose
“....
Look, the olive-tree no longer grieves--
it knows there are seasons and a man must leave,
stand by my side and dry your face now
and smile as if in a family photo.
I've packed my wrinkled shirts and my trouble.
I will never forget you, girl of my final
window in front of the deserts that are
empty of windows, filled with war.
You used to laugh but now you keep quiet,
the beloved country never cries out,
the wind will rustle in the dry leaves soon--
when will I sleep beside you again?
In the earth there are raw materials that, unlike us,
have not been taken out of the darkness,
the army jet makes peace in the heaven”
‘...
Let’s not build a house, let’s not pave a road
Let’s make a house that’s folded inside the heart....”
April 5, 2015
Here where the laurel grows
as magnificent trees, not as shrubs anymore,
we heard our last tune
for the very first time. Since then I listen to it
alone. […]
Not to see you ever again was manageable,
as it turned out: look, we went on living.
But not to see you the very next day
was impossible,
you see: we died.
as magnificent trees, not as shrubs anymore,
we heard our last tune
for the very first time. Since then I listen to it
alone. […]
Not to see you ever again was manageable,
as it turned out: look, we went on living.
But not to see you the very next day
was impossible,
you see: we died.
November 15, 2010
I don't read a lot of poetry, so I don't know enough about it to be able to recommend a poet to someone who does read a lot of poetry, but if I did then I would still probably recommend Yehuda Amichai. He's an Israeli poet (apparently they really dig poetry in Israel) and most of his poems are about his nation being at war with everyone for, like, ever. Some of the poems fell flat for me (mostly because I wasn't familiar with most of the obscure religious references peppered throughout), but on the other hand some of the poems hit me with a sledgehammer of awesome. War, childhood, aging, religion, and Jewish identity are the main themes, which aren't exactly easy targets to tackle with grace, but Amichai's voice comes at you sounding the way I'd imagine god's voice probably sounds. Or a really wise grandparent who's been using language long enough to know how to make it do anything (s)he wants it to. "Travels of the Last Benjamin in Tudela," the longest poem in the collection, is particularly breathtaking. But rather than say anything else about it, I'll just include one of my favorites of his shorter poems:
"An Arab Shepherd Is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion"
An Arab Shepherd Is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion
and on the opposite mountain I am searching
for my little boy,
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
both in their temporary failure.
Our voices meet at the Sultan's Pool
in the valley between us. Neither of us wants
the child or the goat to get caught in the wheels
of the terrible Had Gadya machine.
Afterward we found them among the bushes
and our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or a son
has always been the beginning
of a new religion in these mountains.
"An Arab Shepherd Is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion"
An Arab Shepherd Is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion
and on the opposite mountain I am searching
for my little boy,
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
both in their temporary failure.
Our voices meet at the Sultan's Pool
in the valley between us. Neither of us wants
the child or the goat to get caught in the wheels
of the terrible Had Gadya machine.
Afterward we found them among the bushes
and our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or a son
has always been the beginning
of a new religion in these mountains.
May 22, 2016
The real question is why does Amichai's poetry have so many fruit but no vegetables.
June 2, 2007
I heard Amichai speak when he was still alive, in Ohio, in 1997? 1998? and bought his book (this translation, which is the best (I have two others). Amichai, a wonderful Jewish poet, was a sincere, very humble, and very smart man. To see him read was a pleasure. More than anyone, in how many readings, I can't say. He was one of the best, I've ever seen, so HUMANE, if that means anything. Totally struck me and had me thinking for weeks about what it meant to be a writer, I mean to REALLY live the writing life.
And beyond that, his poetry is such a lovely immersion into Jewish and American history; to me he is a little like Viktor Frankl meets Robert Frost. For anyone who loves poetry I recommend him. He almost won a NOBEL, his work was that respected (and I think they wanted to award him the PEACE PRIZE, as I remember...). Great read, wonderful translation--the best of those I've read, to my mind. And an inspiration to those who wish to be spare with prose, to those who need to remember their histories, and those who value emotional content.
And beyond that, his poetry is such a lovely immersion into Jewish and American history; to me he is a little like Viktor Frankl meets Robert Frost. For anyone who loves poetry I recommend him. He almost won a NOBEL, his work was that respected (and I think they wanted to award him the PEACE PRIZE, as I remember...). Great read, wonderful translation--the best of those I've read, to my mind. And an inspiration to those who wish to be spare with prose, to those who need to remember their histories, and those who value emotional content.
September 25, 2019
Never had heard of this author before being gifted this collection, but what an incredible intro to Israeli literature! Amichai is a stunning poet, and this book is a great taste of his entire bibliography.
Since we are looking at poems from many decades, there is stylistic variety but there are certainly repeated themes. Amichai certainly has dark poems—he dwells on his loss of religious faith and the pain of participating in multiple wars—but he also writes tender love and family poems.
A great example of the power of this poet is the very first stanza from the collection:
God has pity on kindergarten children.
He has less pity on school children.
And on grownups he has no pity at all,
he leaves them alone,
and sometimes they must crawl on all fours
in the burning sand
to reach the first-aid station
covered with blood. (‘God has pity on kindergarten children ‘)
While this is a sizable collection, you can pretty much open to any page and jump in easily. This man needs to be read.
Since we are looking at poems from many decades, there is stylistic variety but there are certainly repeated themes. Amichai certainly has dark poems—he dwells on his loss of religious faith and the pain of participating in multiple wars—but he also writes tender love and family poems.
A great example of the power of this poet is the very first stanza from the collection:
God has pity on kindergarten children.
He has less pity on school children.
And on grownups he has no pity at all,
he leaves them alone,
and sometimes they must crawl on all fours
in the burning sand
to reach the first-aid station
covered with blood. (‘God has pity on kindergarten children ‘)
While this is a sizable collection, you can pretty much open to any page and jump in easily. This man needs to be read.
Read
November 25, 2011God has pity on kindergarten children.
He has less pity of school children.
And on grownups he has no pity at all,
he leaves them alone,
and sometimes they must crawl on all fours
in the burning sand
to reach the first-aid station
covered with blood.
from "God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children"
He has less pity of school children.
And on grownups he has no pity at all,
he leaves them alone,
and sometimes they must crawl on all fours
in the burning sand
to reach the first-aid station
covered with blood.
from "God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children"
October 12, 2020
Powerful poetry. Memorable.
June 20, 2016
Delightful Discovery !
Although Yehuda Amichai is truly a great and well known name, I have not had the pleasure of reading his works until now and I am truly sorry for that for he is definitely a name, a must-read name, for everyone who enjoys poetry, literature and serious works that dabble in everything from love, life, war, different kinds of relationships and many are intertwined with religious, Biblical and Jewish motives.
Yehuda Amichai was an Israeli poet, by many the most famous of the modern Israeli poets. His life wasn't easy and his choices have taken him down some very hard roads but also enriched his life and his spirit which he describes in his poems.
His poems are memorable because at first look they seem simple and straightforward but when you spend a little time on them, when you read them a couple of times and take them apart you will notice remarkable metaphors which will then stay with you for hours, days and longer, you will be unable to take your mind off of some of them. And that is what a truly great poet does. He finds his way into your heart and your head and creates ideas, thoughts and evokes feelings which will enrich your life in one way or the other.
I have only read his poems in English and Croatian but I have read many reviews that state how beautiful and rich his poems are when speaking of language in which he wrote in and that is colloquial Hebrew (one of the first poets to write in colloquial Hebrew). I believe it is so because even in my language his poems echo through my mind and my soul.
One of my favourite ones is "A Pity, We Were Such a Good Invention" :
"They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantle us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little."
Although Yehuda Amichai is truly a great and well known name, I have not had the pleasure of reading his works until now and I am truly sorry for that for he is definitely a name, a must-read name, for everyone who enjoys poetry, literature and serious works that dabble in everything from love, life, war, different kinds of relationships and many are intertwined with religious, Biblical and Jewish motives.
Yehuda Amichai was an Israeli poet, by many the most famous of the modern Israeli poets. His life wasn't easy and his choices have taken him down some very hard roads but also enriched his life and his spirit which he describes in his poems.
His poems are memorable because at first look they seem simple and straightforward but when you spend a little time on them, when you read them a couple of times and take them apart you will notice remarkable metaphors which will then stay with you for hours, days and longer, you will be unable to take your mind off of some of them. And that is what a truly great poet does. He finds his way into your heart and your head and creates ideas, thoughts and evokes feelings which will enrich your life in one way or the other.
I have only read his poems in English and Croatian but I have read many reviews that state how beautiful and rich his poems are when speaking of language in which he wrote in and that is colloquial Hebrew (one of the first poets to write in colloquial Hebrew). I believe it is so because even in my language his poems echo through my mind and my soul.
One of my favourite ones is "A Pity, We Were Such a Good Invention" :
"They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantle us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little."
September 13, 2011
By way of a "review," I'll simply copy out one of the shorter poems:
Fields of Sunflowers
Fields of sunflowers, ripe and withering,
don't need the warmth of the sun anymore,
they're brown and wise already. They need
sweet shadow, the inwardness
of death, the interior of a drawer, a sack
deep as the sky. Their world to come
the innermost dark of a dark house,
the inside of a man.
Oh . . . okay, maybe a few actual review-type words. I'm no expert on him and seem to have acquired the book by mere happenstance. But he's so great: the mixture of humor and resignation (to aging and death) with the surrealism of so many of the images. The images of loved women, in particular, stand out so specifically--he gives them their subjectivity--even as he also uses the love poems, notably, to comment on his own sense of himself as an individual in history: a historicized identity in the deepest and most complex sense of the phrase.
Fields of Sunflowers
Fields of sunflowers, ripe and withering,
don't need the warmth of the sun anymore,
they're brown and wise already. They need
sweet shadow, the inwardness
of death, the interior of a drawer, a sack
deep as the sky. Their world to come
the innermost dark of a dark house,
the inside of a man.
Oh . . . okay, maybe a few actual review-type words. I'm no expert on him and seem to have acquired the book by mere happenstance. But he's so great: the mixture of humor and resignation (to aging and death) with the surrealism of so many of the images. The images of loved women, in particular, stand out so specifically--he gives them their subjectivity--even as he also uses the love poems, notably, to comment on his own sense of himself as an individual in history: a historicized identity in the deepest and most complex sense of the phrase.
January 28, 2008
Perfect poems concerning sex, love, war, family, nation, and the other essentials. Profound, lucidly written, and rife with complex, sensuous metaphors that really *catch*. I aspire to write poems like these some day.
August 16, 2008
This is the only book of poetry that ever made me cry. I don't cry. What worries me is that this is all translated from Hebrew...so who should I really thank? Yehuda or the translators? I just found another reason to cry...damn.
August 28, 2023
Right now I could say this is the best poetry book I’ve ever read. Which wouldn’t be precise. How can we tell, anyway? But I can certainly tell you, this is one of the best books I’ve come across. I want to carry it with me, always, every day until the last. It is that beautiful.
January 30, 2008
liking this much better the second time around.
May 6, 2014
Searing. Perfect. True.
October 22, 2017
Read cover-to-cover over the past 6 months or so...good to spend time with such a huge figure. In general I enjoyed the later poems more.
October 29, 2018
Prošlog proleća sam proveo nekoliko zanimljivih dana u Tel Avivu. Tačnije, negde na polupropustljivoj granici između Tel Aviva i Jafe, nadomak mesta u kom se pravi najbolji humus na svetu, kako tvrde lokalci. Boravio sam u ulici Jehude Amihaja. Tada, priznajem, nisam znao ko je u pitanju. Domaćini su mi rekli samo da je u pitanju neki pesnik.
I ostao je „neki pesnik“ sve dok mi knjiga njegovih izabranih pesama u izdanju Gradine nije upala u oči sasvim slučajno, dok sam u biblioteci tražio nešto drugo.
Pesme Jehude Amihaja, koliko god to kliširano zvučalo mogu da se čitaju kao poetski uvod u delo Davida Grosmana. Znam, reći da je jedan veliki pisac/spisateljica, da izvinete, klasik, koji stvara na „malom“ jeziku uticao na velikog pisca istog tog jezika sledeće generacije zvuči kao zicer, ali kako ne povući paralelu između Jehudinih stihova iz pesme Sedam tugovanki za pale u ratu:
„Gospodin Beringer, čiji je sin
pao kod Sueckog kanala,
koji su prokopali stranci
da bi brodovi plovili kroz pustinju,
prolazi pored mene kod Jafa-kapije.
Mnogo je smršao; izgubio je
sinovljevu težinu.“
i majčinog odnosa prema vesti o sinovljevoj smrti u Grosmanovom romanu Do kraja zemlje.
Raša Livada piše kako Amihajevu poeziju karakteriše poetsko ekonomisanje, kako nema viškova, nema jezičkog divljanja, kako je sve oružje smisla. Ali meni se čini da to ekonomisanje ne dolazi samo od poetskog stava, već od surovosti života u kontinuiranom ratnom i međuratnom stanju u bliskoistočnom grotlu. Oprostite na biografizmu, ali Amihaj je rođen kao Jevrejin u Nemačkoj, zatim je bio vojnik u britanskoj vojsci tokom drugog svetskog rata, pa komandos u ratu za nezavisnost Izraela. Čovečansko u njemu je fosilizovano:
„Ja sam daleko od emocija i osećanja
Kao ugalj od šume koja je bio.“
Postoji samo rat i iščekivanje rata, večiti oprez prema ljudima, i kao posledica toga, veliko nepoverenje prema rečima (iako njima vrhunski barata), jer reči su ljudske, prema jeziku uopšte („hebrejski je sleng Boga“), a pre svega i posle svega najveće nepoverenje u sebe samog koje se najlepše čita u sledećim stihovima:
„Kažu za mene: ’Na njega se možeš osloniti’.
Eto do čega sam dospeo! Eto koliko sam potonuo!
Samo oni koji me doista vole
Znaju da se ne može.“
I ostao je „neki pesnik“ sve dok mi knjiga njegovih izabranih pesama u izdanju Gradine nije upala u oči sasvim slučajno, dok sam u biblioteci tražio nešto drugo.
Pesme Jehude Amihaja, koliko god to kliširano zvučalo mogu da se čitaju kao poetski uvod u delo Davida Grosmana. Znam, reći da je jedan veliki pisac/spisateljica, da izvinete, klasik, koji stvara na „malom“ jeziku uticao na velikog pisca istog tog jezika sledeće generacije zvuči kao zicer, ali kako ne povući paralelu između Jehudinih stihova iz pesme Sedam tugovanki za pale u ratu:
„Gospodin Beringer, čiji je sin
pao kod Sueckog kanala,
koji su prokopali stranci
da bi brodovi plovili kroz pustinju,
prolazi pored mene kod Jafa-kapije.
Mnogo je smršao; izgubio je
sinovljevu težinu.“
i majčinog odnosa prema vesti o sinovljevoj smrti u Grosmanovom romanu Do kraja zemlje.
Raša Livada piše kako Amihajevu poeziju karakteriše poetsko ekonomisanje, kako nema viškova, nema jezičkog divljanja, kako je sve oružje smisla. Ali meni se čini da to ekonomisanje ne dolazi samo od poetskog stava, već od surovosti života u kontinuiranom ratnom i međuratnom stanju u bliskoistočnom grotlu. Oprostite na biografizmu, ali Amihaj je rođen kao Jevrejin u Nemačkoj, zatim je bio vojnik u britanskoj vojsci tokom drugog svetskog rata, pa komandos u ratu za nezavisnost Izraela. Čovečansko u njemu je fosilizovano:
„Ja sam daleko od emocija i osećanja
Kao ugalj od šume koja je bio.“
Postoji samo rat i iščekivanje rata, večiti oprez prema ljudima, i kao posledica toga, veliko nepoverenje prema rečima (iako njima vrhunski barata), jer reči su ljudske, prema jeziku uopšte („hebrejski je sleng Boga“), a pre svega i posle svega najveće nepoverenje u sebe samog koje se najlepše čita u sledećim stihovima:
„Kažu za mene: ’Na njega se možeš osloniti’.
Eto do čega sam dospeo! Eto koliko sam potonuo!
Samo oni koji me doista vole
Znaju da se ne može.“
November 15, 2017
Wildpeace
Not the peace of a cease-fire,
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,
that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds—
who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
Not the peace of a cease-fire,
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,
that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds—
who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
March 15, 2022
Yehuda Amichai mingles autobiography and Jewish history into a strange and irresistible amalgam. Biblical allusions and Jewish history are transformed into part of the poet’s personal history. The poem hint and allude to Israel’s conflict, the Bible, and history, but they aren’t really political poems, focusing on the personal and intimate self-reflections of the poet. He explore topics such as his relationship to his parents, his past lovers and love life, his children, his relationship to Israel, Jewish history, God, and the Bible.
November 11, 2018
Beautifully and seamlessly translated, and the poetry itself is exquisite. My Judaic knowledge isn't always great enough to interpret Amichai's allusions fully, but I am grateful to have this selection to read and reread. Highly recommended for everyone!
November 9, 2024
Absolutely stunning. “Poems for a Woman” will forever remain my favorite poem.
In the place where you love,
all the furniture has to be cleared out from the room,
all the trees, all the mountains, all the oceans.
The world is too narrow.
In the place where you love,
all the furniture has to be cleared out from the room,
all the trees, all the mountains, all the oceans.
The world is too narrow.
February 2, 2018
Looking forward to reading many of these poems again to internalize them.
February 27, 2018
"Souviens-toi de moi, / Comme de peu ou de beaucoup, / Souviens-toi de moi dans les couloirs de la mort / Et dans les plaisirs qui se levèrent / Avec une grande lumière."
July 6, 2019
Translated poems of a secular Jew who lived most of his life in Palestine/Israel. Lots of good poetry, but their themes may become repetitious: sex, history, declarations of unbelief.
December 11, 2022
But a high four
April 19, 2023
partial reading
Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews