Of Tyrant

The striking latest from Umansky (The Barbarous Century) blends rage and desire with the perseverance required to endure American corruption and sexism. Confessional anecdotes are delivered with heavy repetition and single-word lines that seek to mimic how the mind speeds up, slows down, retreats, obsesses, and circles as it undergoes despair. 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 describes watching a girl struggle to “rise against the spasm of silence,” her visage “a controlled earthquake of dread, of fragmented haunting.” After stating that the constitution protects people from tyranny, she asks, “what protects the people from the people? What/ protects the people from their selves?” 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. (June)