Poet: Yehuda Amichai

Temporary Poem of My Time by Yehuda Amichai

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This is System Error, a film by Guli Silberstein. Here’s how he describes it:

Pixelated, glitchy desert images from the disputed Israeli-Palestinian region and electronic soundscape are integrated with a poem by the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, and read by the actress Gila Almagor, transmitting an urgent message to stop the continuing violence by all sides in the Middle East. The work highlights the absurdity and pain of repeating human patterns of error, turmoil and destruction, and the difficulties of communication in deaf, chaotic world.

The English translation used in the film is by Barabara and Banjamin Harshav.

Young David by Yehuda Amichai (with discussion by Edward Hirsch)

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http://vimeo.com/24221256

Avi Dabach’s marvelous film interpretation of Amichai’s “Young David” (translated by Abraham Birman) is wrapped within a video introduction and post-film discussion by Bob Holman and Edward Hirsh at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. Hirsch describes his own, elliptical approach to politics in poetry, and says that Amichai was his major influence and model in this regard.