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Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

1.4K followers 860 following 120 posts

Poet. New Englander. A little bit cranky.
Author of CERTAIN SHELTER (June Road Press, 2024)
Poetry editor for The Adroit Journal
www.abbiekieferpoet.com

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Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Brian Turner calls HUMAN RESOURCES by @erinmurphy.bsky.social a "love song to the profound work of survival." It's a fantastic description of this incisive, clever collection that made me pay real attention to the ways we value labor and the humans who provide it. graysonbooks.com/products/hum...

What Did You Do Last Week?
1. I lay in bed and thought of the AA mantra
one day at a time and the Dolly Parton lyric
I’ve had to think up a way to survive
and the Becket line I can’t go on. I’ll go on.
2. I scattered a few bucks like birdseed
to causes I care about.
3. I sat in meetings where there were calls
to order and motions on motions,
oceans of motions. Someone in the shadows
was always taking minutes. Taking minutes.
4. I went for a walk in a wetland preserve
nestled between an asphalt company
and the county courthouse. A northern flicker
pecked for ground beetles. On its head:
a red brushstroke like an artist’s
afterthought. Or a warning. I wondered
if birds have blood. I wondered if the people
in power have feelings. I wondered
if we’ll go on. I told myself we can’t
not go on.
5. I wrote this poem.

Cover of HUMAN RESOURCES by Erin Murphy. A black background with a doll in a yellow dress that appears to be falling. Small doll hands reach from the top of the image toward the falling doll.

August 5, 2025 at 1:46 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

This cat that looks like a croissant wants you to read my review of DEAR FUTURE by Jennifer Richter in @northamerreview.bsky.social: northamericanreview.org/open-space/2...

White and tan Persian cat posed in front of blue background.

March 20, 2025 at 3:59 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

spring-weather skiing // tick checks are important // this way

A white woman with green sunglasses and a blue vest holding black and yellow ski poles in the woods.

Graffiti of a jack-o'-lantern, a face, and the words TICK CHEK.

A wooden red arrow pointing right on a stake stuck in a snow bank.

February 25, 2025 at 7:39 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Really enjoying this ARC of LAW OF THE LETTER by @thisamericanliz.bsky.social. And the gorgeous cover! Coming in April. You can pre-order here: inlandia-institute.square.site/product/law-...

An e-reader with an image of the cover of LAW OF THE LETTER by Elizabeth Galoozis. Patchwork blanket in the background.

February 19, 2025 at 2:33 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Love the gentleness of this poem by Ben Groner, first published in @theshorepoetry.bsky.social.

C BOARDING GROUP

The gate attendant jokes he's saved the best for last, like in Cana when guests tasted the best in the last hour and two thousand years later we still can't fathom such a shrug of generosity. When was the last time we spoke with our neighbors down the street? And what can't a son trace back to his mother? Mine wept as I flew two thousand miles away to sizzling parrillada, vino tinto, chalky canyons, freezing rapids. As we all link arms on the rim of the raft, the stranger's hair soaked and eyes sunshot, our shoulders cool to the other's touch, we are transmuted into a speeding O down the throat of the land's untapped desire afterwards, as we change back into dry clothes in the hostel, I have no need for a miracle, for wine to be anything but malbec, for water to be anything but river.

34

Cover of DUST STORMS MAY EXIST by Ben Groner III

January 10, 2025 at 3:27 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Put a copy of Certain Shelter in a free library that I often pass while I'm running and that I definitely won't be checking in on every time to see if anyone has adopted my book yet, that'd be weird.

Four book spines: THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, CERTAIN SHELTER, a metallic gold spine with no text, and THE LAST ENEMY.

January 2, 2025 at 7:44 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Feels a little early in the morning for this, Yogi Tea.

A mug with white and yellow flowers in front of a window. Tea bag string with tag that says THE ONLY THING THAT CAN LIMIT YOU IS BELIEVING THAT YOU ARE LIMITED. BECOME LIMITLESS.

December 22, 2024 at 12:27 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Tiny trees.

Two small green clay trees, shaped like cones, between two metal model Christmas houses.

December 19, 2024 at 6:57 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Two true things.

A circular magnet that says GOOD POETRY LASTS FOREVER and a green sticker with white type that says MOST OF MY FRIENDS ARE PLANTS.

December 16, 2024 at 9:56 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

This poem by Katie Farris, from the fantastic STANDING IN THE FOREST OF BEING ALIVE.

In the Shadow of This Valley

I'd like to write you something mighty, a quake to send all your books of love poems flying like paper birds around your head, and the photographs of your exes pecking at our words, flocking to the windows-voyeurs.

(Why do love poems attract birds as sure as seed or worm or nectar?)

Soon, my love poem will settle, but for an aftershock or two; soon it will become solid ground, and we'll be puzzled, looking down, to remember the love poem from long ago, how it shook.

The cover of Standing in the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris. A white background with black text and an arm holding a cut braid of hair.

December 15, 2024 at 7:45 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Christmas cactus not feeling super ambitious this season.

A Christmas cactus with a single flower bud sitting in a white pot on a white cabinet.

December 13, 2024 at 2:24 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Someone in Ithaca is a GENIUS.

White square plastic lid with text: ITHACA HUMMUS FRENCH ONION

November 25, 2024 at 2:55 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Hey, it's CERTAIN SHELTER, being a cover model at my library.

Five books on display on top of a book shelf: CERTAIN SHELTER, LOST MAN'S LANE, THE THIRD GILMORE GIRL and two books with illegible titles. Windows and a potted tree in the background.

November 16, 2024 at 6:56 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Sometimes gaps in the narrative timeline feel gimmicky, but @jamiattenberg.bsky.social does it so well.

Cover of A REASON TO SEE YOU AGAIN by JAMI ATTENBERG. Green background with a photo of a pink touch-tone phone.

November 12, 2024 at 4:29 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

If you're feeling like everything is a lot right now, may I offer this poem that is about everything being a lot. And also about Axl Rose. gulfcoastmag.org/online/karao...

My Massage Therapist Asks if the Pressure’s Too Much
Abbie Kiefer
Let me tell you, Lil—I’m here to be borne
down on. Give me the unambiguous
burden of your forearm and the immutable
plane of your table, where I cried

just that once, thinking of my last
trip to Home Depot. The engulfment
of ivories, swatched and racked
like a shark’s teeth, row behind row behind

row behind row, and the roof-high aisles
of essentials: scrapers and tape and high-density
rollers. I always want to make improvements
the right way. Yes, Lil, my shoulders often carry

a clench between them. No, I’m not too warm—
another thing I should work on. The volume
could be a little lower on all the flute music
and this cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine,

Rolling Stone’s 88th Greatest Song of All Time,
rendered on piano: the easy brush of broken
chords without Axl Rose howling to be told
where should he go now, where should

he go. I don’t fault him for demanding
direction. For wanting someone
to gently wake him when he hums
the 87th Greatest Song in shifting sleep,

to remind him to stretch his trapezius, tight
as the strings on Slash’s guitar. To promise
any shade will be fine for the walls
of his half-bath: Swiss Coffee or Spun

Cotton or any of the others, applied
with rollers of any density, taping the trim
or not. It’s only paint, Axl, only rollers.
Right, Lil? Only a bathroom, and only half.

November 11, 2024 at 7:11 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Book unboxing time! If you preorder, Baby carries it right to your door! www.juneroadpress.com/certain-shel...

A still from the movie Dirty Dancing. A man carrying two watermelons and a woman carrying a cardboard box.

Stacks of the book CERTAIN SHELTER in a cardboard box.

September 29, 2024 at 8:05 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Trying to decide if my porch greenery says "festive" or "florist assigned to the Claus funeral."

An ivory urn with a tall arrangement of evergreen branches, eucalyptus, and red ilex berries.

December 15, 2023 at 6:27 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

The cashier wanted to know if I was Scandinavian. Dude, these are LIMITED EDITION. Are you telling me not everyone is buying them eight tins at a time??!?

Eight tins of Royal Dansk cookies, winter edition.

December 7, 2023 at 3:37 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Turkey trotting

Ankles in pink and blue running shoes and socks printed with turkey legs and slices of pie.

November 23, 2023 at 2:43 PM

Abbie Kiefer

@abbiekiefer.bsky.social

Pairing Christina Olson's The Anxiety Workbook with this lavender tea (for the anxiety, get it?) and the tea is excellent but not as excellent as this book. upittpress.org/books/978082...