What does it mean to live in a country at war within itself-politically, spiritually, psychologically? Where does this sickness originate? In poems both personal and sweeping in scope, Umansky opens the door to all the possible answers, pointing outward but also to the twists and turns of our collective psyche. Read this book if you are brave, if you plan to vote in 2024, if our future frightens you, if you love this world we live in.
According to Publisher's Weekly, "The striking latest from Umansky blends rage and desire with the perseverance required to endure American corruption and sexism. Stamina, gratitude, and catharsis serve as pivotal motifs alongside themes of balance (healthy anger vs. inner peace; self-preservation vs. risk taking; doubt vs. certainty). Umansky remains steadfast in her conviction that tyranny cannot withstand collective resistance: 'What perches, what roots, what winds and cracks/ What tenses and dwells, what ails us, and what hurtles us down// Into the whistling air of despair, all will not stop us.' Accessible and urgent, Umansky's poems are a conduit for readers to harness their anxieties and channel them into fortitude."
Pulitzer Prize winner Diane Seuss says: "Umansky's Of Tyrant walks the wide-lined, recitative path of Walt Whitman, but rather than echoing Whitman's swaggering American optimism, Umansky unfolds the litany of 21st century American tyranny. 'you thief / you liar / you sheep / you hedge of darkness, ' she addresses the tyrant. 'This is not a choir. / I will not sing, ' she writes, and what she does instead is spin, spit, perform, and improvise. Umansky writes poems that take up space, that self-reflect, that sling gargantuan words like cruelty, fear, virtue, desire, and love. To live under tyranny begs for big gestures, and she provides. In the process, Umansky's book embodies and ritualizes the epic defiance required to survive this epic period of social and spiritual trauma."
Hala Alyan, author of Hijra and The Twenty-Ninth Year, adds, " Umansky says in the opening titular poem Of Tyrant, and goes on to weave a beautiful reflection of tyrants, past and present, political and domestic, interior and external. In a collection rich with symbolism, inventive form, and meditative verses, Umansky delves deep into what it means to be subjugated-and what it means to resist. Vulnerability is what centers these unflinching, evocative poems: in steadiness, in tenderness, and, yes, even in hope."
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