A Life of Poetry, 1948-1994

by Yehuda Amichai, Benjamin Harshav

Yehuda Amichai: A Life of Poetry 1948-1994 offers a comprehensive and timely evaluation of the body of work of one of our most valuable poets in any language. Employing the style and idiom of a post-Modernism--of a twentieth-century artist--and filtering it through the prism of his Israeli and Jewish sensibilities, Amichai's words ifs cosmopolitan, muscular, and ironic. Resounding with the exhilarating of the human encounters--it is brought into the sharper contrast by the ever-present precariousness of Israeli existence. The burden and legacy of this history, and its impact upon modern, secular society, places Amichai's work within a uniquely Israeli landscape--arid, verdant, cruel, and beautiful--while simultaneously transcending national and religious borders. Translated from the Hebrew by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav, this volume brings Amichai to his rightful place beside the leading poets of the twentieth century.

Genres: Poetry, Jewish, Middle East

496 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1995

About the author

Yehuda 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.

Reviews

[Jenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't get enough of Amichai. He has some of the most beautiful metaphors I've ever read.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and deep. It can get repetitive if you read it straight through. I recommend four or five poems per sitting so it doesnt all roll together.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This large, comprehensive volume allows for a deep reading of Amichai, and I'm impressed at how consistent his poetry is over the years. However, the downfall of any large selected like this is that nature of consistency. Somewhere around page 200 I wanted to yell, "I get it! How about something a little different?" I'd take this poet slowly to avoid giving short shrift to any one poem. This would have rated more four or five stars if not for some issues I have with the translation. Sometimes the syntax is off, the grammar tweaked, a casual tone wreaked by an odd formalness--and vice versa. I've never noticed this in other translations, but it is hard to say whether this is the nature of native English writers doing the translating verses the (I believe) native Hebrew speakers translating this edition. But this is always a frustration with any translation: wondering how it sounds in the original.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amichai is great. In this very inclusive book, there are many, many translations that read as fine poems in English.
Highly recommended.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Israeli poet who is not afraid to address any topic boldly, and with nuance. He has heartbreaking poems, wry political commentary, and lots of fun biblical allusions.

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is good reading for midnight, for sleepless lonely times. Amichai's writing is meaty, true and clean. One of my favourite poetry books.

[Velvetink]

Mentioned in The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women by Harriet Rubin.

[Aria]

I want to own this!