Customer Reviews

Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems (Sheep Meadow Poetry)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yehuda Amichai's poetry is so close to the marrow of grief andlove and hope and longing that when you put down this book, you willhave loved and lost and wept with him. The rooms he has inhabited will be your rooms. And maybe, just maybe, is she isn't already, the city Yerushalayim will be your city as well. Buy this book...

Yehuda Amichai is the kind of poet whose words and images you remember at the oddest times. He sticks to your mind - maybe because the quiet force with which he speaks of shadow and light, places and times, seasons and colors, longing and joy. Ever-present in his work are the themes of love, loss, and the harsh reality of war, but the effect is never one of violence - Amichai's poems have always made me feel peaceful and strangely contented. He is a poet for empathizing with. After reading him I feel as if I had taken a long walk on a sunny afternoon in the quiet neighborhood that I love. Excuse me for the ranting, but I can find no better way to express it. His Jerusalem emerges both as a real - and beautiful - city, and as an enchanted place where (like in the old fairytales) nothing is casual or common. He writes in the way I myself would like to write.

Amichai's poetic voice is, as so many know, well worth hearing. And that voice constitutes half of this book--the half that is his poetry in the original Hebrew. That half I give 5 stars. My disappointment lies with the translations.

And while this book represents the work of various translators, and some poems are, therefore, rendered more accurately than others, I have often wondered why translators--here, but in many translations of other poets, too--presume to change the division of lines (where the poet chose to end and begin lines) and why they so frequently add or omit words, or use imprecise semi-synonyms or somewhat similar expressions instead of sticking closely to literal translation...changes which warp the feel of the original poem. Poetry is an exquisitely subtle dance of words; people should not pretend to be translating, it seems to me, if they are putting their own twist on the poet's work, or merely loosely conveying the general meaning of the poem. (And, I dare say, even the poet himself should not pretend to be translating his original poem if he does such things.)

Examples of the above-mentioned imprecision and infidelity are so numerous in this book that anyone familiar with both English and Hebrew will, if reading carefully, find them in nearly every poem.

Because I've seen how common it is for poetry to be translated sloppily, I try to buy foreign poets only in bilingual editions, so that I have a chance of catching the poems' original voice and intent. Regrettably, in this case such caution turns out to have been warranted.

Read Amichai, by all means! But study the original Hebrew of his poems if you can, and judge for yourself whether the translations do the poems justice.

Amichai was one of the major voices of the 20th century. He's not sufficiently well-known, perhaps because he wrote in Hebrew. The world needs to discover this humane, wise man.
This is a parallel text with the translations done by some very well-known poets, including Ted Hughes. Amichai translates well into English. His language is matter-of-fact and conversational -- his metaphors are always arresting.
Jerusalem was Amicha's city and provided his greatest inspiration. he described the problems of living in such a city better than anyone else.
He writes:
"Jerusalem is built on the vaulted foundations
of a held-back scream. If there were no reason
for the scream, the foundations would crumble, the city would collapse;
if the scream were screamed, Jerusalem would explode into the heavens."
And also:
"Jerusalem is a port city on the shores of eternity.
The Temple Mount is a huge ship, a magnificent
luxury liner. From the portholes of her Western Wall
cheerful saints look out...'
And also:
"Jerusalem's a place where everyone remembers
he's forgotten something
but doesn't remember what it is."

Amichai is the most popular Hebrew poet since Bialik. Israelis love to read him because he writes with clarity , depth, beauty and irony of love and war, and of the realities they know in their everyday life. A walker in the city, a shopper in its markets, a teacher for many years there was something down- to- earth and reassuring about Amichai. In his poetry he uses the religious tradition he knows , making often a kind of ironic secular poetry that plays upon the great literature of the past. His great strengths are many including a deep connection with people he is close to, his parents, his comrades-in- arms, his family, his loves. Amichai is a poet who gives the reader the sense of sharing one's common humanity with. He can take experiences which might seem ordinary and commonplace, and transform them into memorable lines.
What a wonderful poet he is.
Reading this collection will give insight and pleasure.

some translations could be better, but a lovely anthology of a beautiful poet. Try "hebrew verse" by carmi for english/hebrew of other hebrew poetry.