Poetry
Amichai's poetry deals with issues of day-to-day life, and with philosophical issues of the meaning of life and death. His work is characterized by gentle irony and original, often surprising imagery. Like many secular Israeli poets, he struggles with religious faith. His poems are full of references to God and the religious experience., He was described as a philosopher-poet in search of a post-theological humanism. Amichai has been credited with a "rare ability for transforming the personal, even private, love situation, with all its joys and agonies, into everybody's experience, making his own time and place general."
Some of his imagery was accused of being sacrilegious. In his poem "And this is Your Glory" (Vehi Tehilatekha), for example, God is sprawled under the globe like a mechanic under a car, futilely trying to repair it. In the poem "Gods Change, Prayers Stay the Same" (Elim Mithalfim, ha-Tfillot Nisharot la-Ad), God is a portrayed as a tour guide or magician.
Amichai's poem Memorial Day for the War Dead was set to music for solo voices, chorus and orchestra in Mohammed Fairouz's Third Symphony.
Read more about this topic: Yehuda Amichai
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“For me being a poet is a job rather than an activity. I feel I have a function in society, neither more nor less meaningful than any other simple job. I feel it is part of my work to make poetry more accessible to people who have had their rights withdrawn from them.”
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“Poetry is essentially the antithesis of Metaphysics: Metaphysics purge the mind of the senses and cultivate the disembodiment of the spiritual; Poetry is all passionate and feeling and animates the inanimate; Metaphysics are most perfect when concerned with universals; Poetry, when most concerned with particulars.”
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“A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.”
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