SOURCE: "Modern Hebrew Verse," in World Literature Today, Vol. 60, No. 2, Spring, 1986, pp. 229-33.

In the following essay, Ramras-Rauch comments on the varied character of modern Hebrew poetry and principally considers the verse of Yehuda Amichai, Natan Zach, and Avot Yeshuruh.

What characterizes modern Hebrew poetry as a whole is the absence of a common characteristic (other than the basic fact of its being written in Hebrew). Among its practitioners are writers born in Europe and others born in Israel; there are poets who have been influenced by traditionally Jewish or biblical themes, and others whose work was shaped by Russian, French, or English literary elements, as well as those who have partaken of both worlds; and there are those who have sought a continuity with the styles and motifs of the past, and others who have set out on paths of their own, seeking their individual voices. The...