The Circle with no End and no God: the Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
I don’t know if there are better opening lines to a poem than the ones to Amichai’s “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.”
It is an amazing piece. Amichai starts with that diameter of 30cm and expands it, circle by circle, describing the destruction and change found in each ring.
Amichai is an Israeli poet, and it is easy to imagine what the subject of the poem is. We see these types of stories all the time in the news: a bomb is set off in Israel and x amount of people are killed or wounded. And what happens afterward? What about the victims, their families and friends? The news can only give us the brief bite of information, and usually moves quickly on to the next story.
In this poem, he tells us to imagine the destruction, the pain and suffering, from the center of the blast outward. It expands from that small diameter outward to seven meters (where four died and eleven were wounded), to hospitals and graveyards around the area. It keeps going to a woman who died in the blast’s home town which is over a hundred kilometers away. And he keeps it going until the circle is so large that it ends up in a place without God.
This is what I love about Amichai’s writing: he can start with something small, stretch it outward and upward. He moves the poem through space and time, sometimes speaking about love, or history, or religion. Everything is linked together, the past and present speak to each other in a few lines. An event like the bombing goes out, ripple after ripple into infinity.
And his writing is always precise (I can only imagine what it’s like in his native tongue). His images, juxtapositions, movements from one thing to another are always perfect. Every poem makes me stop and think. Each image is strong and vivid.
I have to wonder if this precision comes from his military background. During WWII, he served with the British and he served again in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, fighting with an elite fighting force called the Palmach. Amichai also served in the Israeli army in 1956 and again in 1973. Not only would his experiences fighting in combat color his work, but I think his training would instill exactitude.
Born in Germany in 1924, he grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household. This, of course, means that not only did Amichai serve in WWII, but was also part of Israel’s quest to become a nation. With the rich history of Israel, and his life experiences, Amichai is one of the best poets of place and home I have read. He is wise, introspective, and questioning when he speaks of Jerusalem, Israel, and the Holy Land.
I do have to say something about the translation of this book: I have “The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, Newly Revised and Expanded Edition” translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell”. I did find a different translation of “The Diameter of a Bomb” online and it wasn’t near as poetic as this one (the link earlier is to the translation for this book). This happens when reading poetry in translation, so look for highly regarded translators or books with great reviews. This book is perfectly done.
The book “Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems” a Bilingual Edition that is in the photo is also fantastically done. I return to both of these volumes often.
Go; buy these books, read Amichai. Read his poems for the sake of beautiful poetry. Then, reread them and study his craft. Look for how he moves the reader in and out of time, history, and space. Feel how he speaks of love, pain, and home. I know I do…