It is Amichai's unique poetic voice that has proved so appealing through the years, a voice consistently in consonance with the spirit of his people and his times. Not merely contemporary in a topical or linguistic sense, Amichai has displayed a charm and a wit which have endeared him to both an Israeli and an international reading audience…. Though they are generically and stylistically varied, Amichai's works … reverberate with relevance and insight, with aesthetic challenge and enjoyment.

One of the most distinctive elements of Amichai's poetry is its disarming simplicity. In reading his poems, one often has the feeling of reading a diary without days, a record of someone's personal impressions or intellectual musings, set down at random. This perception is prompted by several of the poetry's central characteristics: the quasi-autobiographical voice Amichai often uses, the aphoristic nature of many of his lines, his patently casual, candid tone...