Bono went to Israel but he didn’t write a poem
U2 FRONTMAN Bono went on a surprise visit to Israel earlier this month. It was apparently a private family trip and he wanted to stay under the radar. But it’s hard to be inconspicuous when you go for an evening stroll in Jaffa wearing bright orange sunglasses.
Anyway, after visiting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Bono signed off from the Holy Land with a poem about a “dog called Hope”, illustrated with a drawing of said dog. The poem was found in the guest book of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, where Bono stayed with his family. It went:
“In Jerusalem, hope springs eternal. Hope is like a faithful dog, sometimes she runs ahead of me to check the future, to sniff it out and then I call to her: Hope, Hope, come here, and she comes to me. I pet her, she eats out of my hand and sometimes she stays behind, near some other hope maybe to sniff out whatever was. Then I call her my Despair. I call out to her. Here, my little Despair, come here and she comes and snuggles up, and again I call her Hope.”
He signed, “With great thanks for great room in great hotel in great city, Bono.”
The note, published on Buzzfeed, went viral, but even in Israel few paid attention to the words scribbled in small letters under Bono’s name: “Reading Amichai”.
The late Yehuda Amichai is Israel’s most famous modern poet. He once likened hope to “a faithful dog”. In fact, Bono’s note was a direct citation of one of Amichai’s poems from the book Open Closed Open.
The drawing, however, was an original.
Posted: 19th, April 2012 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
