By Yann and Gilad Atzmon

My BBC HardTalk appearance has been drawing a lot of attention. I have been receiving a lot of support, but I also encounter a substantial surge of hate mail.

I would love to share this one with you, because it is poetic as much as it is angry and demands some analysis.

'i hate U' is a poem written presumably by a Zionist hardliner who decided to deliver his beauty by means of email.

i hate u

i hate u

and F**K you

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Poetic analysis:

'i hate u' maintains some clear poetic features such as repetition and minimalism. The choice of using modern poetic language avoiding capital letters or any other form of grammar is also revealing. We are dealing here with a rebellious poet who actually sees himself and the subject of his hatred as mutually equal.

However, due to aesthetic consideration the poet decides to break the echoing voice at the exact right moment and serves us with a punch line that delivers a complete change of mood and scenery. ‘F**K you’ transcends us from the domain of anger to the dimly lit bedroom, to the act of love making and eroticism.

One may wonder why a poet, who hates me so much insists to resolve our troubled relationship with intercourse. This is, I guess, the wisdom of poetry, it leaves so many questions open to the imagination.

An alternative analysis by Yair Avidor (via FB):

With each repetition of the sentence 'i hate u' the words gradually lose their meaning, the syntax disintegrate and the words become mere sounds. I can hear the poet's voice becoming more gentle with each repetition, and one could almost substitute 'love' for 'hate'. The last sentence is the erotic catharsis of the love- hatred duality, the immense tension which has been built up so skillfully as we read through the poem.