"[OF MEN]" by Leah Umansky

The following poem is a brief selection from our Fall/ Winter 2019 print issue, accompanied by an audio recording of the poet reading their work. Click here to purchase the full issue, which features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art by more than 30 brilliant contributors.

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[OF MEN]

for Ruth Awad and Adam J. Gellings

and why is it that everything is
built for the hands [of men] and
why is so much of today islanding
away from us and where is the past
when we need it and where is the
love and where is the following of
one joy to the next and where are
the consequences and repercussions
and where is the captive and where
is the blued

The other day, the tyrant said, hate has
no place in our country, while naming the
wrong city where the tragedy occurred,
and I thought: Is man no more than this.
The foolery [of men] and this world
and the hands of the hands [of men]

Everything moves too fast and it
is hard to live living directly heart to
head, heart to mouth, heart to hand
to hand to hand and hard to insist
on the gut, its taste and reflection
what is casual what is pleasure
what is fleeting what stays behind
and what is the tempering and the
patience the grappling. We cringe
in this world [of men] and shouldn’t

*

i listen and shouldn’t i be and
shouldn’t i whether and shouldn’t i
hush and shouldn’t i know and
shouldn’t i wonder declutter sit still
come reveal suggest sit still stiller still

No.

This world [of men] this world this
world this world [of men] is merely a
mention, here, this room, this hand of
my touch, take that tyranny back. The
world [of men], their hands and hearts
and hands built for touch the world
[of men] is measly, the world [of men]
is measurable; this world [of men] is
merely menstrual in rush in flow and
don’t they know it? See the handling
clearer. This world is built for no one.
This world reveals another, a gentler
world with gentler hands to hold the
world [of men]; bid the dishonest man
mend himself, mend yourself, mend the
world [of men]

* A note from the poet:
“This poem is part of my new manuscript, OF TYRANT, and is essentially about tyranny and toxic masculinity.  It is inspired by a few things. One is the foolery of some of Shakespeare's men, like those in King Lear and Twelfth Night. Two, a conversation I had with my friend, poet Ruth Awad, about cell phones and pop sockets when I was in Ohio last summer for some readings. Ruth said that the cell phone is really designed for the hands "of men." I was instantly inspired and wrote that down. Three, the notion that it's hard to be good; it's hard to be a good person. We could all be good or at least try to, if more people could rise above, and "[men]d" themselves.  My friend Adam J. Gellings that same day had a brief conversation about the word, "islanding," and I stated I would use it in a poem and I did.”

Image: Dana Schutz, Big Wave, 2016.

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Leah Umansky is the author of two full-length collections, The Barbarous Century (2018), and Domestic Uncertainties (2013), among others. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and is the curator and host of The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such places as POETRY, Guernica, Bennington Review, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, Poetry International, The New York Times, Rhino, Pleiades, and the anthologies, The Eloquent Poem (Persea Books) and Misrepresented Peoples (NYQ Books). She is #teamstark #teamelliot & #teambernard.