Yehuda Amichai has the distinction of being one of
the first Hebrew language poets to write in the spoken vernacular, rather than
in the poetic register that marked most modern, Israeli poems. More
Love Poems, a collection of his poems on topics amorous does show this in
many particular examples. Yet he still
holds an ironic attachment to the biblical text. His poems are not yet the kind of ethnicy, street
verse we find, for example, in Ronny Someck’s The Fire Stays Red.
In “I Dreamed a Dream,” Amichai connects his poem
to the biblical story of Joseph’s dream interpretation of Pharoah’s cows, both fat and sleek, to seven maidens, one
group heavy, one group thick. The thin
ones swallow the leans ones with their “hungry thighs” and the narrator of the
poem, making love to them all, gets swallowed by the voracious thighs in turn.
So, the picture of Amichai is far from clear. Some of his poems are startling clear, and
empty of biblical allusion. Others hop
and play along with the biblical text, borrowing from it both as a form of
connection and distance to the text, which has been done for millennium with the words of
the bible.
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