poetic voices of this past century – one of the most intimate, alive and human, wise, humorous, true, loving, inwardly free and resourceful, at home in every human situation. One of the real treasures." In The American Poetry Review, May–June 2016, David Biespiel wrote: "He translates the hardness of existence into new tenderness; tenderness into spiritual wonder that is meant to quiet outrage; and outrage into a mixture of worry and love and warmth ... He is one of the great joyful lamenters of all time, endlessly documenting his anguish, throbbing pains, mistaken dreams, shortages of faith, abundances of ecstatic loves, and humiliations. And, like everyone else, he wants everything both ways. In particular, he wants to be a lover and a loner, a guy in the street and an intellectual, believer and infidel, while insisting that all manifestations of war against the human spirit be mercilessly squashed." Anthony Hecht said in 2000 that Open Closed Open "is as deeply spiritual a poem as any I have read in modern times, not excluding Eliot's Four Quartets, or anything to be found in the works of professional religionists. It is an incomparable triumph. Be immediately assured that this does not mean devoid of humor, or without a rich sense of comedy.". And: "not only superb, but would, all by itself, have merited a Nobel Prize." Author Nicole Krauss has said that she was affected by Amichai from a young age. Amichai's poetry has been translated into 40 languages. Awards and honours 1957 – Shlonsky Prize 1969 – Brenner Prize 1976 – Bialik Prize for literature (co-recipient with essayist Yeshurun Keshet) 1981 – Würzburg's Prize for Culture (Germany) 1982 – Israel Prize for Hebrew poetry. The prize citation reads, in part: "Through his synthesis of the poetic with the everyday, Yehuda Amichai effected a revolutionary change in both the subject matter and the language of poetry." 1986 – Agnon Prize 1994 – Malraux Prize: International Book Fair (France) 1994 – Literary Lion Award (New York) 1995 – Macedonia's Golden Wreath Award: International Poetry Festival 1996 – Norwegian Bjornson Poetry Award Amichai received an Honor Citation from Assiut University, Egypt, and numerous honorary doctorates. He became an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1986), and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991). His work is included in the "100 Greatest Works of Modern