I was five years old when I wrote my first song. It was out of longing for my father that I wrote it.

People's talk and the stories they tell have been engraved on my heart, and some of them have flown into my pen.

But perhaps the truth newly discovered is itself only temporary and when new discoveries are made these truths too will be abandoned. But one truth remains for ever, and that is the search for truth.

Through a historical catastrophe - the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome - I was born in one of the cities in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.

Who were my mentors in poetry and literature? This is a matter of opinion. Some see in my books the influences of authors whose names, in my ignorance, I have not even heard, while others see the influences of poets whose names I have heard but whose writings I have not read. And what is my opinion? From whom did I receive nurture? Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk.

As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile.

I returned to Jerusalem, and it is by virtue of Jerusalem that I have written all that God has put into my heart and into my pen.