“Certain Shelter,” by Abbie Kiefer, June Road Press, paperback, 79 pages A few weeks I ago I talked to Abbie Kiefer about “Certain Shelter,” her debut collection set in central Maine. These poems address the loss of her mother as well as the forced change in Maine’s mill communities of the last century. Jeri Theriault: Many place references in this collection are familiar to me and anyone else who grew up in central Maine.
Even the cover art, Main Street at Night, Waterville, Maine, is familiar. Why did you choose this particular image? Abbie Kiefer: I was drawn to its composition—the car coming at the viewer, headlights on. There’s motion and the idea of illumination, and it’s clearly an image of the past, which is so important to this book—how the past can be a reminder of impermanence.
I’m thinking of the old Hathaway mill in Waterville which for a time housed Marden’s, where they sold office furniture and wallpaper. I used to go shopping there with my parents. You know when people worked in these old mill buildings, they probably could not imagine them being used for a different purpose because they were so integral to the community and employed so many people.
People expected the mills to always exist. But seeing the buildings now, repurposed or empty, it’s clear that the things we count on can’t always last. There’s a grief in that.
JT: In your poem, “Revitalization Efforts: The Mill,” the mill has been “a scrap lot / and flea market”.
