Poet Leah Umansky Reads From Her New Volume: OF TYRANT

In Conversation with Claire North

Leah Umansky is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently, OF TYRANT (Word Works Books 2024.) She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has curated and hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011.  Her creative work can be found in such places as The New York Times,  The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A Day, USA Today, POETRY,  and American Poetry Review.  Her new hybrid-memoir, DELICATE MACHINE,  an exploration of womanhood, hope, and heart in the face of grief and a global pandemic is looking for a home. She can be found at  www.leahumansky.com or @leah.umansky on IG.

OF TYRANT is about living under the eye of the tyrant. The tyrant, in his many forms, devastates our democracy and our truths, and in doing so, he also infringes on what is precious in our humanity, the heart.  Poems from the book have been published in such places as,  Poets.org ‘poem a day,’   Minyan Magazine, The American Poetry Review, The Missouri Review, and the Cincinnati Review , among others.  Not only is it a book about democracy and tyranny but also about womanhood and hope.What does it mean to live in a country at war with itself–historically, spiritually, politically? 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 in, 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.