“Hovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch” W. W. Norton & Co., 2009 If Israel had a Mount Rushmore-type memorial for poets, the late Dahlia Ravikovitch would be part of the monument. Although little known to American readers, she is admired in Israel as much, if not more, than Yehuda Amichai and viewed as a canon unto herself. Born in Ramat Gan in 1936, she published her first poem at eighteen and was a constant voice and presence in Israeli poetry and politics until her death in 2005, achieving, for many, the status of a fifth matriarch. When she received the Israel Prize in 1998, the country's highest literary honor, she was cited as "a central pillar of Hebrew poetry during the fifty years of statehood."