BlazeVOX Books

74 pages/$16.00

On the back cover of Leah Umansky’s first book, Domestic Uncertainties, Cornelius Eady refers to her as the literary daughter of Emily Dickinson. In fact, the title of this collection is taken from The Letters of Virginia Woolf.  Even while many women writers have paved the way for Umansky’s collection about a broken marriage, Umansky manages to blaze her own trail, with a voice that harkens back to feminist literary icons of the past while simultaneously creating something new. The voice crying out from this wrecked romantic union seethes with bitterness, wit, defiance, and courage; the female speaker also remains dominant throughout the text, uncovering truths and barking orders at her lost lover:

It was all appositives.

You never loved.

Say it for me.

Say it.

The book’s most lucid moments seem like a deep, philosophical quest.

The poems fluctuate back and forth in form, from prose poems to fragmented associative poems, to poems that have experimental layouts on the page.  But in all forms Umansky seems concerned with discovery, and many of them feel like epiphanies. Consider these lines from “The Marital Space:“

 Remember, memory is flexible.

How we make ourselves isn’t coincidental; it’s consequential.

 

And also these from “How We Make Ourselves:”

History always repeats itself, but the heart,

The heart uplifts and uproots. The heart

replants.

In these lines, the speaker triumphs in discovering what it means to rebuild the self after a shattered relationship, and the end result seems to be a sense of deep self reflection and endurance. These moments delight, because they take risks and carry such heavy truths. Continue reading →