Book artist and poet Rick Black selected 18 of his favorite window poems for The Amichai Windows. Each one needed to resonate emotionally — and each one needed to spark Black’s imagination so that he could create a visual collage in response to the poem.
The 18 poems of The Amichai Windows range from a variety of collections that Yehuda Amichai wrote over the course of his lifetime. Each of them mention or refer to windows in one way or another. A pile of windows, a shattered window, looking out a window for someone departing from or returning home — whatever it might have been, Amichai was fond of windows, which allowed him to see and be seen.
Ultimately, Rick decided on 18 poems because the number corresponds to the Hebrew word, “chai,” or “alive,” the last part of Yehuda Amichai’s name. In Hebrew, letters have numerical equivalents. All together, Amichai means “My people lives!”
The poems are listed here in the order of their appearance in the book. The numbered poems come from one of Amichai’s early collections, Time. More will be written about each of the poems as this blog progresses. For instance, please see the blog entry on Yom Kippur.
Eternal Window
28
My Mother Baked the Whole World For Me
Yom Kippur
Summer Evening by a Window With Psalms
Just As It Was
Among Three or Four in the Room
I Am in Great Distress
The Jews
My Little Girl Looks
My Son Was Drafted
54
From Man Thou Art and Unto Man Thou Shalt Return
56
To Remember is a Kind of Hope
I Know a Man
When I Returned, They Told Me There is No
God’s Hand in the World