ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
My daughter, Leah Umansky is named after two great women, her mother's mother Leona, and her father's grandmother, Leah. As her mother, I consider her, along with her sister, to be my best friend. She is as beautiful inside as she is outside, and this is why her writing continues to illustrate her wit, intelligence and creativity. I'm excited for her fourth book, The Barbarous Century, forthcoming from Eyewear Publishing in 2018, which will further establish her voice in this ever-changing society.
— Ronnie Umansky
Stranger Is
That it might have been yesterday,
But here we are and it is astonishing.
The hidden and the rejected fall off.
The chaotic firsts, the exiled words, the discovery
Of lie upon lie.
Don't let them.
Don't let them forget to say their name aloud.
Remember, this volume of our future is overwhelmed
By what is vivid. This sensory overload is fashioned in the air,
Thick with blossom and ripe with insult.
Exhale.
There is so much in this to adore:
The coming together the discussion,
The ardent resistance, and, the next generation,
conspiring re-evaluating flowering
Don't forget the horror. The unrelenting slog,
The brain-noise the steeping-must of hate,
The mulling-over of falsehoods.
It is too much to keep to one's self.
I have hopes here, still unquelled.
Within our bodies, inside,
Is another inside,
And another inside,
And another inside that,
Like a procession of thrones.
Peel back the gilded.
Be kind to yourself, but notice the shifting of hands.
Think about how things are casted,
The tangible things.
Those that used to be casted by hands,
Are now spun in lies.
*
I am disappointed in my country's dreams,
In my countless dreams, and in my country of dreams.
I am most disappointed in my own inability to see.
I keep saying to myself, darkness doesn’t hold, and it won't,
So don't close.
Think: beacon, reckon rage,
And then fathom the unthinkable.
This is not a country that stops.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
