Abbie Kiefer PRESS AND REVIEWS
Enjambments: An Interview Series
Talking with poets.org about grief, historical memory, and pop culture in Certain Shelter.
A Spare Poetry of New England
"The specific seething spareness of the New England said/unsaid lives in Abbie Kiefer’s debut collection of poetry, Certain Shelter. —Nina MacLaughlin
The First Book: Holiday Gift Guide
Certain Shelter is included on this list of seven debuts. It's a book for anyone who has seen an old mill and felt a sorrow they couldn’t name.
31 Outstanding Poetry Books from 2024
"Abbie Kiefer lives in and writes about New England with voice that is hard-bitten and sardonic and yet deeply tender and lyrical. You get the feeling she would be an equally good companion at a bar, a bowling alley, a doctor’s appointment or a funeral." —David Starkey
"You're never going to get it fully right—but you keep trying"
A conversation with Jason Gray on avoiding sentimentality, enacting surprise through line breaks, and rallying for a revival of E. A. Robinson's work.
"The power of Certain Shelter lies in its clarity: Kiefer’s clear-eyed speaker, fearless engagement with lyrical and confessional poetry, and sharp use of form." —Tyler Truman Julian
"Like Kiefer, I want poems to help me bridge my losses—and these poems do. These poems hit hard, but as much out of gentleness as ferocity." —Meghan Sterling
What I've Been Reading: Certain Shelter
"There's engagement with decay and its inevitability, and the difficulty of revitalization, whether that might be the physical revitalization of a community or the revitalization of a life in the aftermath of loss. But there's a looking toward the future as well with a feeling that isn't exactly hope but isn't completely different from hope either." —Mike Sakasegawa
Inescapable Reminders of How Days Hurdle Forward
An interview with Nancy Reddy on how having kids gave my creative work a sense of urgency.