The Diameter of the Bomb

The poem is a free verse poem written in a stichic form. A stichic poem is a poem that consists of a single stanza descending down the page, without any separate sections or stanza breaks. This form is effective at increasing the emotional impact of the poem, as the poet describes the bomb in a continuous train of thought, evaluating the bomb’s effects with increasingly devastating imagery. This highlights the connection, from the first factual observation to the final image that explores the impact the bomb has had on society. The poem’s emotional power is compressed into a single stanza, threading the poet’s thoughts on the bombing from its very first moment of impact to its incalculable effects on the entire world.

Amichai uses a particular diction to create a sense of mood, and the changes in his word choice as the poem progresses allow the reader to feel the full impact of the bomb’s true capacity for destruction. The mood is calm and unemotional in the first five lines, with a relatively mundane account of the bomb’s technical effectiveness using the language of an engineer or a scientist.