The wealth of barely contained emotion that
threatens to pour out and envelop the reader speaks to an individual’s sorrow and a private perspective on the world. These words are at odds with other poets of Ruebner’s generation, including T. Carmi, Yehuda Amichai, Haim Gouri, Anadad Eldan and Amir Gilboa, whose writing, at least in the early years of their careers, was focused on Israeli identity. While Ruebner failed to embrace Israeli culture in its entirety, he also uses Jewish imagery, biblical verses and descriptions of the landscape. But his pathos-filled allusions exist in a reified ethereal space, rather than the earthy reality emblematic of his peers.
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