Poet Review of the Week: Courtney LeBlanc
April is National Poetry Month Series
As part of National Poetry Month, I want to introduce you to some of my favorite contemporary poets and their work. Today, I’m pleased to introduce you to the brilliance of Courtney LeBlanc.
“Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the four full-length collections, most recently Her Dark Everything and Her Whole Bright Life (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize). She is the Arlington County Poet Laureate and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press, and Poetry Coven, a monthly generative poetry workshop. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning.”
After I devoured her 2021 poetry collection “Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart,” I raced to grab her latest collection “Her Dark Everything.”
A small portion of the glowing reviews of this latest collection are summarized below:
“In her fourth, full-length poetry collection, Her Dark Everything, Courtney LeBlanc approaches grief, friendship & what it means to be a human with tenderness and candor. These revelatory poems include experimental forms and traditional elegies, all characterized by the universal, timeless questions about what it means to be human in a world that often annihilates us.”
“Her Dark Everything is the masterful fourth collection Courtney LeBlanc brings to readers in a poignant exploration of grief and self-acceptance, weaving enormous loss with the broadest theme of embracing one’s inner darkness. LeBlanc’s poetry captures the raw, visceral experienced of mourning a friend gone tragically too soon.”
“If you blend radiance with darkness, hope with death then hope again, and tie them into a gorgeous friendship knot, you’ll glimpse the brilliance of Courtney LeBlanc’s “Her Dark Everything.” This collection, an elegy to her friend Paula and a love poem to her best friend Virginia, is nothing short of breathtaking.”
Goodreads Reviews of Courtney’s Books
“Courtney LeBlanc writes the way a miner mines for gold––hacking away at the mundanities of life––each poem striking the treasure beneath the dark monotony.”
“More than elegy, more than prayer to make it through grief and struggle, LeBlanc offers the truth in its rawest form. Here we find poems that offer a reflection toward ourselves and we find the courage to face our own stories and truths with her guidance. And to end with a poem that sent shivers down my spine…incredible!”
You can learn more about Courtney and find her books and other offerings at these links:
Visit her website at Courtney LeBlanc
Courtney presents additional offerings beyond books of poetry.
She hosts the Poetry Coven, a monthly generative poetry workshop with sessions offered both in-person and online. More information - Poetry Coven.
For freelance editing services, click here: Editing services
You can follow her on her socials at these links:
Facebook Courtney LeBlanc Poetry
Instagram Courtney LeBlanc Poetry
Bluesky Courtney LeBlanc Poetry
Now, a word from our sponsor.
(That’s me. I’m my own sponsor.)
I hope you enjoyed my deep dive into poetry this month. Thank you for bearing with me through the daily poetry postings. My desire was to share some of my work with you in advance of putting together my own poetry collection later this year. But scheduling daily poetry posts also offered me the ability to step away from writing for most of the month without letting this publication languish while I attended to the urgent matter of my father’s health care.
I hope to be back to the semi-regular twice a week schedule soon.
Thank you for being one of my readers, I appreciate every single one of you very much!