Mani Leib

Mani Leib (Mani Leyb, ; born Mani Leib Brahinsky, ; 20 December 1883, Nezhin, Russian Empire – 4 October 1953, New York) was a Yiddish-language poet.

Early life Mani Leib was born in Nizhyn. 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.

Career Leib migrated to the United States at the age of 22 and settled in New York City in 1906. He published his poems in Yiddish newspapers like The Jewish Daily Forward. Writing in the cadences of ordinary speech, he formed a group of poets called Di Yunge ("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 and repetition."

He worked throughout his life making shoes and boots, and he references his profession in the poem "I Am." He contracted tuberculosis 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. The second volume of contains a brief autobiography.

Personal life Leib was married to Feyge Rolnick and had five children. He later left his wife to marry poet Rochelle Weprinski.