The Diameter of the Bomb

“The Diameter of the Bomb” is a lyric poem written by Yehuda Amichai. It was published in 1976 in his third book of poetry, Time. The poem’s elegant, accessible, and somber style was inspired by Modern poets such as Ted Hughes and W. H. Auden, as well as Amichai’s study of Hebrew literature and the Bible during his childhood and young adulthood. The poem was translated from Hebrew into English by Amichai and Ted Hughes. It is an anti-war poem with clear and simple diction that employs technical language to describe a bomb from a scientific viewpoint, creating a sense of false comfort in relation to war. The poet then subverts this understanding of war in the subsequent lines, amplifying the emotional consequences of the bombing by showing the consequences of the bombing on the world as a whole. The poem does not refer to any particular bombing or war but rather seeks to capture a universal, non-specific bombing. This poem is one of Amichai’s many poems that decry violence and condemn any who believe that war is justified in the name of peace.

Poet Biography

Yehuda Amichai was an Israeli poet and novelist who was born in Wurzburg, Germany in 1924. His Orthodox Jewish family left Germany in 1936 when Amichai was 12 years old, fleeing the Holocaust. His family then moved to Palestine. He fought on the side of the British forces during WWII, and he later fought against the British during the Arab-Israeli struggles in the years during which Israel was being established. His first language was German, but he learned Hebrew as a child and later English, though he wrote his poems in Hebrew throughout his lifetime. Following the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, during which he fought with the Israeli forces, Amichai attended Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he studied Hebrew literature and the Bible. He taught at secondary schools following graduation and published his first poetry book Now and In Other Days in 1955, which already featured his unique voice and poetic skill. His next poetry collections, Poems, published in 1969, and Selected Poems of Yehuda Amichai, published in 1971, established his international reputation. For these collections, he and Ted Hughes worked together to translate his poems into English. During his life Amichai would publish two novels, eleven poetry collections, and a book of short stories. In 1982, he received the Israel Prize for Poetry, and in 1986 he was named an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Amichai died of cancer in 2000 at his home in Jerusalem at the age of 75. His work has been translated into 37 languages.

Poem Text

Amichai, Yehuda. “The Diameter of the Bomb.” 1979. Allpoetry.com.

Summary

The first three lines provide a mathematical description of the bomb’s measurements – “thirty centimeters” (Line 1) – and the range of its destructive potential, which sounds relatively small at a mere “seven meters” (Line 3). On the fourth line, the “dead” and “wounded” who were harmed by the bomb are noted to be a relatively small number of casualties. On the next line, the bomb’s diameter is increased and is now encompassed by a larger circle, one “of pain and time” (Line 6). A “hospital” (Line 7) and burial are now included in the circle, but they are only “scattered” (Line 6) within the area of pain and do not form its focal point or center. On the next line, a woman who was killed by the bomb is mentioned, and her burial site far from the site of the bombing itself “enlarges the circle greatly” (Line 11). A man who mourns the woman’s death in a far away unnamed country increases the bomb’s circle of destruction to include “the whole world” (Line 14) within it. The poet enters the poem for the first and only time in the poem by stating “I won’t speak...about” (Line 15) the children who are orphaned due to the death of their parents caused by the bombing. The poet states that the crying of these children is heard by God and then surpasses even God to create a circle that reaches beyond an earthly life or a human understanding of time. In the final line, the bomb’s destruction forms a circle “without end and without God” (Line 18), reaching the universe to create an eternal ring of sorrow brought about by this single act of war.