The Poetry Stash: 29Feb2024

The Diameter of the Bomb by Yehuda Amichai

Today’s poem is “The Diameter of the Bomb” by Yehuda Amichai from the collection The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. The book is available for purchase here.

The Diameter of the Bomb by Yehuda Amichai

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the howl of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.

Prompts:

1.	Begin with “at the distant shores of a country…”
2.	Begin with “And I won’t even mention…”
3.	Draft a war poem.
4.	Draft a poem that explores the relationship between faith and violence.
5.	Draft a poem that includes specific measurements as this poem does with geometry (diameter, centimeters, meters, kilometers, circle).

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