In poems marked by tenderness and mischief, humanity and humor, Yehuda Amichai breaks open the grand diction of revered Jewish verses and casts the light of his own experi­ence upon them. Here he tells of history, a nation, the self, love, and resurrection. Amichai’s last volume is one of medi­tation and hope, and stands as a testament to one of Israel’s greatest poets.
 
Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open
in the universe without us. For as long as we live, everything is closed
within us. And when we die, everything is open again.
Open closed open. That’s all we are.




—from “I WASN’T ONE OF THE SIX MILLION:
   AND WHAT IS MY LIFE SPAN? OPEN CLOSED OPEN”

...

bilingual edition, tr from Hebrew by various ...

Poetry. Yehuda Amichai is Israel's most popular poet as well as a literary figure of international reputation. His poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages. Renowned translators Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell have selected Amichai's most beloved and enduring poems from his eleven volumes and have included forty new poems from his recent work in this revised and expanded collection. "For sheer energy of imagination, for the constantly renewed sense of poetry's ability to engage reality, Amichai has no close competitors on the Israeli scene, and perhaps only a few worldwide." --Robert Alter, New York Times Magazine....