Gordon Hill Press, 2020
You’ll know, when you start to read Amy LeBlanc’s
debut book of poems, I know something you don’t know, that you’re entering a
realm that might be adjacent to—but isn’t really fully a part of—this three
dimensional one we live in now. In the very first piece, “Wintering,” the
speaker says “I am a calamity/asking for armistice.” Those final two lines, in
that first poem, kick at the reader’s heart and gut. Move on, then, to “Night
Apparition,” and find images of Ophelia in a “filigree nightgown,” standing “at
the edge/of the water.” Here is the picture of a woman who has rib bones that
“are lined/with nectar and fastened/with an ivory button,” in a surreal poem
where “horses drink/poisoned water.” Things are not pretty here, are meant to
make you feel ill at ease, but also likely meant to draw you forward—as if into
a gloomy forest in a fairy tale gone wrong. To resist the pull would be futile—and
a loss to the reader, too—if fear stopped you from the adventuring.
There’s a distinct texture to the poems in LeBlanc’s
collection, with images that seem both glossy and full of decay at the same
time. It’s a delicate dance between beauty and gore that she’s orchestrating
here, and it works. In “The fox changes his fur,” the poet writes: “Teeth fall
from her lips:/twenty white piano keys/dangling from the mouth,” and in
“Birthing Black Rabbits,” we read of a woman who grips wet sheets as rabbit feet
emerge “from between her legs.” This is, as is stated in the poem, “a monstrous
birth.” Throughout the collection, there are images of decaying foliage, stone,
magpies that hold corpses, bruised plums, and strange, thirsty mouths that
temporarily house moths. These are upended folkloric and fairytale images, ones
that subvert the traditional essence of those tales in a subtle and unnerving
manner. “Fractured” is one way of describing them.
Then there are the women who populate the ethereal and
unsettling inter-dimensional world that LeBlanc has created. Besides the
‘ghost’ of Ophelia that appears at the start of the collection, there are
allusions to a variety of women who seem to be conjured up from the land
itself. In poems like “Foxgloves,” “Luster, n.,” and “A spell for a husband,”
the reader comes to know that this is a gathering of pieces that speak to how
powerful women actually are, and there is the suggestion of a coven of
interesting witchy figures that moves creepily throughout the book. They might
seem dark at first, but all together feel more powerful—and empowered—than evil.
What they do, it seems, is pull energy up from the earth and wield it for
creative purposes. They feel, to me as a reader, to be women who are complex
and richly created, not at all stereotypical of old school fairy tale witches.
When you finish reading Amy LeBlanc’s I know something
you don’t know, you’re left remembering the original darkness of the oldest
versions of these tales. If you’ve studied them, you’ll know that those were
not ‘pretty’ worlds or stories, either, so this return to a spookier dimension
isn’t far off the earlier, more historic mark in terms of atmosphere. What’s
different is that the women in this collection have more power, are magic, and
are strong feminist figures who don’t put up with any sort of nonsense. If
you’re a fan of fantasy—of legend and fairy tales—then this debut will suit you
like a well-woven red cloak that needs to be worn on a walk through a dark
forest, on the way to your grandmother’s house.
Kim Fahner lives and writes
in Sudbury, Ontario. She was poet laureate in Sudbury from 2016-18, and was the
first woman appointed to the role. Kim's latest book of poems is These Wings
(Pedlar Press, 2019). She's a member of the League of Canadian Poets, the
Writers' Union of Canada, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of
Canada. Kim blogs fairly regularly at kimfahner.wordpress.com and can be
reached via her author website at www.kimfahner.com