Amichai: You could talk about whether you think he’s provocative, and if so, how, and/or how he using his poetry to bear witness (in other words, to give a very honest and possibly cathartic accounting of tragedies).

In his poems “The Diameter of the Bomb” and “An Arab Shepherd is Searching for his Goat on Mount Zion,” Yehuda Amichai is deliberately provocative to enlighten society on the horrific impact of war and to inspire society to believe that peace is still a viable possibility. In his poem “The Diameter of the Bomb,” Amichai begins by providing the scientific and statistical findings attached to the physical object of the bomb. Beyond this nonchalant description, however, Amichai accounts for the true and horrific impact on the lives affected by its force, such as the “young woman/ who was buried in the city she came from” and the “solitary man mourning her death/…at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers” away (“The Diameter of the Bomb”). In revealing the extensive impact of the bomb, Amichai utilizes the symbol of the enlarging circle to suggest that the entire world will at one point be consumed until it “reaches up to the throne of God” (“The Diameter of the Bomb”). Though Amichai questions the existence of God for allowing such violence to exist in his poem “The Diameter of the Bomb,” he discusses the possibility of finding peace in his other poem “An Arab Shepherd is Searching for his Goat on Mount Zion.” In this poem, Amichai describes an Arab Shepherd and a Jewish father who undoubtedly have many contrasts between them; however, they are “both in their temporary failure” in the midst of war, as they share the desire to save what they love most (“An Arab Shepherd is Searching for his Goat on Mount Zion”). When the Arab and the Jew come together in their search of saving what they love most as opposed to destroying it, Amicha believes that the futility of war could be overcome.