Domestic Uncertainties by Leah Umansky

The language slips, shifts, recalibrates and the world, shaken, is quietly remade, again and again before our eyes in this lovely, sorrowing and finally transformative book. Leah Umansky is to be congratulated for her sensitive, nuanced, consoling and deeply honest sojourn on the page.

—Carole Maso, author of The American Woman in The Chinese Hat and Mother and Child

In the same way that every text is a “marriage of words” one to another, every marriage is a collision of worlds with each other. Sometimes this makes for a beautiful new composition, and sometimes it shatters into sharp jagged pieces. In these poems, Leah Umansky addresses the latter with ferocity and wit and emotional candor, making compositions out of the pieces of a love both “strange and altered”. These “unlove” letters go in search of a wild “new bravery,” renewing our vows to romance and commitment, while wondering aloud if romance and commitment are even still possible/desirable.

—Matt Hart, author of Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless and Light-Headed

Leah Umansky’s first collection, Domestic Uncertainties, is at once delightful and disturbing, illusive and elusive. Her literary and often witty poems are like reflections in a shattered glass that mirror the fractures and disappointments in our un-crafted and witless lives. A masterful wordsmith, she addresses “what lies between the lies,” that distance between reality and imagination, between what is said and what is meant. The pleasure offered by her quirky mediations is surprising and irresistible.

—Nin Andrews, author of The Book of Orgasms and Sleeping with Houdini

“Give me those old habits, but jangle it a little this way and that”. When I read these lines of Leah Umansky’s, I thought of Emily Dickinson’s great lines, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant”, and wondered how she’d feel about this book from one of her literary daughters. I think she’d recognize the stakes and stratagems of Domestic Uncertainties in a happy instant.

—Cornelius Eady

Leah Umansky is a poet, collage-artist and teacher in New York City. She has her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and her poems have been published in such journals as: Barrow Street, Catch-up, and Ping-Pong. This is her first book. Read more at: http://iammyownheroine.com

Book Information:

· Paperback: 80 pages

· Binding: Perfect-Bound

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-114-6

$16

Pre-Orders Welcome

Domestic Uncertainties by L… by BlazeVOX [books]