Mani Leib (Mani Leyb, yi, מאַני לייב; born Mani Leib Brahinsky, russian: Мани Лейб Брагинский; 20 December 1883,

Nezhin Nizhyn ( uk, Ні́жин, Nizhyn, ) is a city located in Chernihiv Oblast of northern Ukraine along the Oster River. The city is located north-east of the national capital Kyiv. Nizhyn serves as the capital city, administrative center of Niz ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

– 4 October 1953, New York) was a

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

-language poet. He was one of eight children; his father sold furs, hides, and animals at regional fairs. His mother supported the family selling hens, geese and eggs. In (''A Story About Myself''), he describes her as a fount of spontaneous rhymes, poems, and epigrams. At the age of 11 Leyb left school to be apprenticed to a bootmaker and as a participant in "revolutionary activities", he was arrested twice while still in his teens. He migrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

at the age of 22 and settled in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1906. He published his poems in Yiddish newspapers like ''

The Jewish Daily Forward ''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, '' ...

''. Writing in the cadences of ordinary speech, he formed a group of poets called ''

Di Yunge Di Yunge was the first major literary movement of Yiddish poetry in America. During the early 20th century, their work emphasized romanticism, individualism, subjectivism, and free and indirect expression. History Yiddish literature was most pr ...

'' ("the Young"). According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Leib's ''sound poems'' drew renewed attention to the Yiddish language through their skillful use of

alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

and repetition." These poems proved controversial, and were parodied by Moyshe-Leyb Halpern in 1910; the two, it is argued, became rivals. Mani Leib also wrote about children. His classic, ''Yingl Tsingl Khvat'', was illustrated by the Russian avant-garde master,

El Lissitzky Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...

. He worked throughout his life making shoes and boots, and he references his profession in the poem "I Am." He contracted

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

and lived in a sanatorium for two years. He never lost his belief in "the ability of poetry to transform the mundane into the divine." His reputation continued to grow after his death, when his collected work was published: (Songs and Ballads) in 1955 and (Sonnets) in 1961. was reprinted in 1963 with parallel Hebrew translations by Shimshon Meltzer, and an introduction by

Itzik Manger Itzik Manger (30 May 1901, Czernowitz, then Austrian-Hungarian Empire – 21 February 1969, Gedera, Israel; yi, איציק מאַנגער) was a prominent Yiddish language, Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, a ...

. The second volume of contains a brief autobiography.Jewish Virtual Library

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Leib, Mani 1883 births 1953 deaths Yiddish-language poets American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Ukrainian Jews Jewish American poets 20th-century poets