Abbie Kiefer ESSAYS AND REVIEWS
The Generous Act of Publishing Drafts: Letting Poems Exist as Iterations
"Isn’t that the task of every writer? To be not afraid? Not afraid to make work and not afraid to let strangers read it and judge it and not afraid to acknowledge the work’s failings and to try to fix those failings, even if the piece was previously declared finished."
Churning Up Mystery
A conversation about poetry that's rooted in domestic spaces and how we can find both mystery and meaning in the quotidian.
Eight Poetry Collections with a Compelling Sense of Place
Recommending books that explore the complexities of connection between a place and its people.
Review of Jennifer Richter’s Dear Future
"If, like the speaker, we want to make peace with uncertainty, this is how to do it: not by anticipating and bracing for every eventuality but by accepting our relative lack of control."
Review of Theresa Monteiro’s Under This Roof
"Under This Roof is a quiet book often set in the realm of the domestic. It’s easy to dismiss as unimportant the ordinariness of daily life, but these poems, with great care, examine the quotidian: groceries that need carrying and hair that needs cutting and children who need to be assured that a universe with black holes and sarcoma clinics and assault weapons can still be a place of consolation."
Review of Meghan Sterling’s View from a Borrowed Field
"The speaker understands her limited agency. She could come to ruin. She will steward the land for a finite time. But neither the possibility of the first nor the inevitably of the second discourages her from working to soften the land. To plant all the good things she’s able."
Review of Joan Kwon Glass’s Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms
"As much consideration as this book gives to the weight of absence, it is also concerned with how that weight might be carried and endured. We can name the nuances of our grief—let it have a specific shape. We can say true things, Glass shows us, even when they are ugly."