The driving impulse of Amy LeBlanc's new collection of poetry, I used to live here, is an examination of chronic illness, disability, and autoimmunity. The collection also aims to find moments of magic and ritual within the experience of illness and to find new metaphors for illness and autoimmunity that do not rely on militarization, self-cannibalism, or suicide. LeBlanc thinks deeply about autoimmunity and the poetic representations of the body that self-destructs and that cannot recognize itself— specifically, she asks: What does a body feel like when it doesn't feel like a home? What does it look like when a body self-destructs? How do we write through and about bodily doubt?
"In I used to live here, LeBlanc tracks the passage of time in empty bird nests and slowly rotting houses. The speaker indulges in rich language, reminding the reader that a clock, somewhere, is ticking, always ticking--that "dust is mainly dead skin, insect legs, pollen, bacteria"--that humans are not unique in death, nor are we alone. The greater solace is the community of historic women, gruesome or not, that LeBlanc evokes to complete this tale of fragile bodies, broken bodies, the quick turn of one to the other, but also the strength of spirit, the resilience of bone." — Skylar Kay, author of Transcribing Moonlight
"Sensual, sinister, and self-aware, Amy LeBlanc’s poems in I used to live here are alert to matters of mind, body, and magic. These tense, hungry poems are not so much laid out on the page as lying in ambush for you." — Daniel Cowper, author of Kingdom of the Clock: A Novel in Verse
"I Used to Live Here is evocative and alive, sliding between keenly felt observations of the natural world and luminous reflections on the self. In this tender and, at times, darkly captivating collection, Amy LeBlanc tests the margins, the constraints, of the body, with a precise, folkloric cadence that is characteristic of her brilliant voice. Imaginative, spectral, and teeming with vivid language, these poems shift the heart into new positions." — Alycia Pirmohamed, author of Another Way to Split Water