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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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Book Review: The Barbarous Century 
​
by Leah Umansky


The Barbarous Century
Leah Umansky
Eyewear Publishing
2018
978-1-912477-05-0
107 pages
$14.24


Leah Umansky is the writer of Domestic Uncertainties (BlazeVOX, 2013), the mad-men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream, the dystopian themed Straight Away the Emptied World (Kattywompus Press, 2016), and The Barbarous Century (Eyewear Publishing, 2018). She is a graduate of the MFA Program in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, and a graduate of the MA in English Education—Secondary Education from CUNY- Hunter College. Her work appears in Berforis, New York Times Magazine, Guernica, Tinderbox Poetry, Jet Fuel Review, and Plume. 


Review





















A Review of Leah Umansky's The Barbarous Century by Miguel Soto

Leah Umansky delivers enthralling word-play in her collection of poems The Barbarous Century, while transporting readers between reality and unlikely dimensions. Umansky’s poems critique the psychological manifestation of latent presuppositions of ethics and morality, especially when concerning women. This framework in the social construction of morality, which is already embedded in society’s reality, stretches into the reality of an individuals’ most inventive creations. The Barbarous Century is divided into three sections, “The Lost Just Within Reach,” People Want Their Legends,” and “A History of Sworn Ways,” each illustrating the wants and needs of the speaker(s), who inspect introspectively from predictable as well as imaginative places. 
 
In “This Could be Nostalgia” from Umansky’s first section, “The Lost Just Within Reach,” the speaker uses nostalgia as a tool to investigate the shifting between past and present, focusing on the image of “tides” to picture the movement of time. The speaker’s scenic imagery progresses into attentive verbiage, contemplating the intrinsic value in the speaker’s present:
We are contemplating the contemporary,
            or co-tempting the contemporary
            into a kind of sin.
 
We are doing more than channeling
            when we laugh
            or when we strategize.
The speaker exploits the ambiguity of morphology and diction when denoting the action of “contempting,” to illustrate the existing and continuing disregard for the speaker’s present. The speaker hyphenates the invented word, creating “co-tempting,” attaching new meaning to the unconventional homophones, to regard the present as a subject that evokes attraction to “sin,” or immoral acts. Word-play finds its useful niche, especially in establishing a speculative assessment of contemporary society, or more specifically, society’s “we.” Moreover, in the following stanza, the speaker’s use of “channeling” and “strategize” indicate perceptive qualities of nostalgia, developing into an individual’s manipulation of the past: “we can construct the past.” The conversation between past and present, and the use of nostalgia to achieve this dialogue, demonstrates the structuring of society’s framework, allowing for an introspective response to any individual’s reality. 
 
Continuing into Umansky’s second section “People Want Their Legends,” the reader is taken out of reality, and put into imaginative dimensions, determining a connection between an individual’s creation and the reality of those who watch the creation unfold. Alluding to the characters of HBO’s Game of Thrones, “Cersei” subverts the expectations of reader’s familiarity with the television hit series. For instance, the characterization of Cersei Lannister is often attached to the word “malignant,” but the speaker of “Cersei” wastes no time in saying “she walks for all of us,” undermining the public’s distaste for the fictional character. Furthermore, the speaker not only intends to challenge a reader’s understanding of Cersei Lannister, but humanizes the often-callous Cersei: “she is an emblem of ache.” The word “ache” highlights the trauma the character contains in herself throughout the series. Umansky’s speaker adds, “She is a heroine of hate. A thick-blooded sinner. Warrior. Woman,” proclaiming the admiration for Cersei is in the way she “hates.” Although the speaker recognizes Cersei is motivated by immoral intentions, the speaker still pins the positive connotation of “warrior,” and associates the word “warrior” to “woman.” What the initial two stanzas do in “Cersei,” is question the public’s aversion for the fictional character who do not take into account that Cersei’s actions manifest from layers of latent trauma; and, reason that viewers simply hate Cersei because she is a woman. That is, a woman who defends herself, and refuses to show humility for it. The speaker’s next thirty-six lines alternate between the repetition of statements containing the words “for all the woman […],” and with the response of “shame,” supporting the likeness to Cersei and women outside the imaginative world of Game of Thrones, to show the way creators villainize women for their responses to the world that creates them. Cersei cannot escape the social constructs of the creators who draw her into this fictional landscape, and not even creators can escape the framework of their upbringing in the inventiveness of the fantastical. “Cersei” manifests the notion of a fictional world being subject to the reality of its creators.
 
In the final section of The Barbarous Century, “A History of Sworn Ways,” the speaker(s) sustains transparency, unfolding cryptic reflections through self-examination. In “Bloom,” the speaker admits, “I wouldn’t want to define myself in a single sentence. So / much is already orchestrated.” The lines carry an ambiguity that maintain a load waiting to be unpacked. For instance, the nature of the statement contains an individual’s recognition in their social performance, revealing only what they need to reveal for what the individual deems appropriate for the situation. Divulging feelings is a rarity, and the speaker notes it with a scenario involving a mother and child: “I saw a little boy the other day with his mother. / He smiled up at her screaming with delight, ‘I’m so happy!’/ His mother responded, I’m glad you’re happy.’” The following sentiments contain the residue of envy: “I still think / of the fearlessness he possessed in saying just how he / felt. That innocence. That good despite the world.” The scenario depicts the freedom from social restraint and etiquette that shames people from expressing their sincerity, and it is this child’s freedom from pretense that the speaker finds admirable. From this experience, the speaker is influenced to acknowledge their lack of conviction: “It isn’t easy / to be positive and strong. I’m tired of that directive / dominating me. I’m tired of holding myself up.” The speaker from “Bloom” recognizes a core issue in withholding their true sentiments, which fester, with little to no resolution for relief, acting as a fuel for cynicism and a seal over optimism.
 
Leah Umansky’s The Barbarous Century dissects and reattaches language, playing with the ambiguous construction of words to create a speculative understanding of the human condition’s most pervasive social dilemmas, such as trepidation for the past’s influence on the present, misogyny, and the uncertainty of what truth will arise from self-reflection. The Barbarous Century also critically examines and seeks beyond an individual’s experience and reality, reaching into television and the imaginative, to further establish a comprehension of human afflictions. Umansky succeeds through the condition of being fully transparent in feeling. Leah Umansky’s The Barbarous Century is for the reader who is open to examining their own longing and desires through a variation of tales and poems, ranging from pop-culture, technology, and individual pursuit of lucidity, especially after coming to terms with society’s restraining etiquette toward language, past, gender, and emotion.  

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Miguel is the Asst. Managing Editor and Book Review Editor for Jet Fuel Review. As an editor, one of his main concerns is giving a space to marginalized voices, centralizing on narratives often ignored. He loves reading radical, unapologetic writers, who explore the emotional and intellectual stresses within political identities and systemic realities. His own writings can be found in OUT / CAST: A Journal of Queer Midwestern Writing and Art, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Rogue Agent. He writes for the Jet Fuel Review blog in Not Your Binary: A QTPOC Reading Column. 
​

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  • Home
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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
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      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
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      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
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      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
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      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
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      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
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      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
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      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
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