Yehuda Amichai (1924–2000)

Two of my favourite poems by Yehuda Amichai

God-Full-of-Mercy, The Prayer For the Dead

If God was not full of mercy,
Mercy would have been in the world,
Not just in Him.
I, who plucked flowers in the hills
And looked down into all the valleys,
I, who brought corpses down from the hills,
Can tell you that the world is empty of mercy.
I, who was King of Salt at the seashore,
Who stood without a decision at my window,
Who counted the steps of angels,
Whose heart lifted weights of anguish
In the horrible show more contests.

I, who use only a small part
Of the words in the dictionary.

I, who must decipher riddles
I don't want to decipher,
Know that if not for the God-full-of-mercy
There would be mercy in the world,
Not just in Him.

Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I Walked Past A House Where I Lived Once

I walked past a house where I lived once:
a man and a woman are still together in the whispers there.
Many years have passed with the quiet hum
of the staircase bulb going on
and off and on again.

The keyholes are like little wounds
where all the blood seeped out. And inside,
people pale as death.

I want to stand once again as I did
holding my first love all night long in the doorway.
When we left at dawn, the house
began to fall apart and since then the city and since then
the whole world.

I want to be filled with longing again
till dark burn marks show on my skin.

I want to be written again
in the Book of Life, to be written every single day
till the writing hand hurts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Each time I re-read this, I receive a good soul-scraping.

I carry them around with me like British civilians in the Second World War carried around their gas masks.

It was always there: an appendage, and a weight that after a while became invisible; and that despite its invisibility became a necessary burden which one absolutely could not give up. Without it, one couldn't breathe. Without it, one lost all hope. But with the talisman strapped on, one could still look for tomorrow's sun to shine, amid the ruins.

Despite the despair and seeming hopelessness, Amichai gives me hope that the sun will shine, amid the ruins.

(It's taken such a long time to find these words, having finished a few collections of his works almost a month ago.)

Thank you Other Julie for the introduction. show less

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I have always liked Yehuda Amichai's poetry and this bilingual edition is absolutely perfect for those of us who want to be able to read it in the original as well. The translation is excellent. Amichai's work manages to combine tenderness with Israeli wit and cynicism, and especially moving are the words about his father. Highly recommended.

Since I rarely read poetry, I don't have a lot of context to evaluate this collection. Poetry seems to be as much about the feeling as the content, so I'll just concentrate on the impressions it left with me. Isolation seems to be a recurring theme in the collection, both external and internal. There is absence of psychological intimacy and a disconnect between thought and feeling. There is also a heaviness to the poems in the collection – the weight of the past and the heaviness of the show more present. The poems aren't particularly sorrowful, but there's a definite absence of joy. Most of the poems don't seem particularly religious to me, but religious imagery appears throughout the collection, as in “Sort of Apocalypse” which begins “The man under his fig tree telephoned the man under his vine”.

Yehuda Amichai was an immigrant to Israel, and I think that comes across in this collection of his poetry. There's a sense of being cut off from his past, of being in a different place, a strange place, a home that isn't yet home. Even though the English translation is very good and was awarded the National Jewish Book Award for translated poetry, I can't help but feel I've missed something by being unable to read it in its original Hebrew. I borrowed this from the library and liked it well enough to want to add a selection of Amichai's poetry to my personal library. show less

According to the book jacket Amichai is Israels leading poet. This was his last book of poetry. Many of the poems in this collection are inspired by a small piece of stone that Amichai kept on his desk - a fragment from a Jewish tombstone from a cemetery that was destroyed a thousand years ago. The fragment reads "amen" Most of the poems are about or reference religion and Jewish culture/ history. Amichai has a unique style and the poems are lovely and funny. Here's an example:

When God show more packed up and left the country, He left the Torah
with the Jews.They have been looking for Him ever since,
shouting,"Hey, you forgot something, you forgot."
and other people think shouting is the prayer of the Jews. show less