The Selected Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was Israel's most popular poet, as well as a literary figure of international reputation. In this collection, renowned translators Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell have selected Amichai's most beloved poems, including forty poems from his later work. A new foreword by C.K. Williams, written especially for this edition, addresses Amichai’s enduring legacy and sets his poetry in the context of the new millennium.

Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) is widely considered the greatest contemporary Israeli poet, and a pioneering stylist in modern Hebrew.

C.K. Williams is a poet, translator, and critic, and winner of the Pulizter Prize for Poetry for Repair (1999). His most recent collection is Writers Writing Dying (2012).

Chana Bloch's many books include The Song of Songs: A New Translation and The Windows: New and Selected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch. Stephen Mitchell's numerous translations include The Book of Job, A Book of Psalms, and Genesis.

Foreword 2013 by C. K. Williams
Foreword 1996 by Chana Bloch

PART ONE
edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell

From Now and in Other Days (1955)

God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children
The U.N. Headquarters in the High Commissioner's House in Jerusalem
Autobiography, 1952
The Smell of Gasoline Ascends in My Nose
Six Poems for Tamar
Yehuda Ha-Levi
Ibn Gabirol
When I Was a Child
Look: Thoughts and Dreams
From We Loved Here

From Two Hopes Away (1958)

God's Hand in the World
Sort of an Apocalypse
And That Is Your Glory
Of Three or Four in a Room
Not Like a Cypress
Through Two Points Only One Straight Line Can Pass
Half the People in the World
For My Birthday
Two Photographs
Poems for a Woman
Children's Procession
Ballad of the Washed Hair
Sonnet from the Voyage
The Visit of the Queen of Sheba
From In a Right Angle: A Cycle of Quatrains

From Poems, 1948-1962

As for the World
In the Middle of This Century
Farewell,
Such as Sorrow
Jerusalem
Before
And as Far as Abu Ghosh
You Too Cot Tired
The Place Where We Are Right
Mayor
Resurrection
From Summer or Its End
In the Full Severity of Mercy
Too Many
Poem for Arbor Day
Jacob and the Angel
Here
Elegy on an Abandoned Village
The Elegy on the Lost Child

From Now in the Storm, Poems 1963-1968

Jerusalem, 1967
The Bull Returns
A Luxury
To Bake the Bread of Yearning
National Thoughts
A Pity. We Were Such a Good Invention
Elegy
Threading
Now in the Storm
Travels of the Last Benjamin of Tudela

PART TWO
edited and translated by Chana Bloch

From Not for the Sake of Remembering (1971)
Jews in the Land of Israel
Wildpeace
The Way It Was
Instead of Words
Gifts of Love
Ballad in the Streets of Buenos Aires
Psalm

From Behind All This a Great Happiness Is Hiding (1976)

Seven Laments for the War-Dead
Like the Inner Wall of a House
Love Song
I've Grown Very Hairy
A Dog After Love
A Bride Without a Dowry
The Sweet Breakdowns of Abigail
To a Convert
My Father in a White Space Suit
A Letter of Recommendation
On the Day I Left
A Letter
In a Leap Year
A Quiet Joy
A Mutual Lullaby
From Songs of Zion the Beautiful

From Time (1978)

Songs of Continuity
At the Monastery of Latroun
When I Was Young, the Whole Country Was Young
I Walked Past a House Where I Lived Once
To My Love, Combing Her Hair
The Diameter of the Bomb
When I Banged My Head on the Door
You Carry the Weight of Heavy Buttocks
Advice for Good Love
You Are So Small and Slight in the Rain
A Man Like That on a Bald Mountain in Jerusalem
When a Man's Far Away from His Country
The Eve of Rosh Hashanah
I've Already Been Weaned
In the Garden, at the White Table
From the Book of Esther I Filtered the Sediment
So I Went Down to the Ancient Harbor
Now the Lifeguards Have All Gone Home
Near the Wall of a House

From A Great Tranquillity: Questions and Answers (1980)

You Can Rely on Him
You Mustn't Show Weakness
Lost Objects
Forgetting Someone
"The Rustle of History's Wings," as They Used to Say Then
1978 Reunion of Palmach Veterans at Ma'ayan Harod
An Eternal Window
There Are Candles That Remember
On the Day My Daughter Was Born No One Died
All These Make a Dance Rhythm
In the Morning It Was Still Night
A Child Is Something Else Again
When I Have a Stomachache
I Feel Just Fine in My Pants
Jerusalem Is Full of Used Jews
Ecology of Jerusalem
In the Old City
Tourists
An Arab Shepherd Is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion
A Song of Lies on Sabbath Eve
The Parents Left the Child
Love Is Finished Again
End of Summer in the Judean Mountains
Relativity
Poem Without an End
A Great Tranquillity: Questions and Answers

From The Hour of Grace (1983)

1924
Half-Sized Violin
A Pace Like That
The Box
The Last Word Is the Captain
Statistics
The Hour of Grace
What a Complicated Mess
I Lost My Identity Card
On Mount Muhraka
Summer Begins
Hamadiya
At the Seashore
On Some Other Planet You May Be Right
Autumn Rain in Tel Aviv
A Flock of Sheep Near the Airport
Almost a Love Poem
They Are All Dice
A Precise Woman
Jasmine
Kibbutz Gevaram
History
The Real Hero
At the Maritime Museum
Try to Remember Some Details
A Man in His Life

From From Man Thou Art and Unto Man
Shalt Thou Return (1985)

My Mother Comes from the Days
Now She's Breathing
My Mother Died on Shavuot
The Body Is the Cause of Love
Orchard
Late Marriage
Inside the Apple
North of Beersheba
I Guard the Children
North of San Francisco
Fall in Connecticut
Sandals
Jerusalem, 1985
Evidence
The Course of a Life
From The Fist, Too, Was Once the Palm
of an Open Hand, and Fingers (1989)
What Kind of Man
The Greatest Desire
Two Disappeared into a House
I Know a Man
Between
Summer Evening in the Jerusalem Mountains
At the Beach
The Sea and the Shore
Autumn Is Near and the Memory of My Parents
Yom Kippur
Beginning of Autumn in the Hills of Ephraim
Ruhama
Huleikat- The Third Poem about Dicky
The Shore of Ashkelon
Fields of Sunflowers
First Rain on a Burned Car
We Did What We Had To

Notes
Acknowledgments
Index of Titles