Review: "Abider" by Melissa Crowe

Abider by Melissa Crowe
Published September 2026 via University of Pittsburgh Press
★★★★

But this morning / in the wet grass I saw rotting / windfall pears clustered with bees / who, vibrating, seemed both / ravenous and surprised by their luck. (87*)

Meditative and lush, full of wanting and requited and unrequited yearning, people who fit just right at exactly the wrong time and those who used to fit and no longer do.

I like having to work for poetry (me with my prose-laden, non-poet brain), and work for this collection I did. I read this slowly, a poem here, a few poems there, to allow each page time to percolate. Lots of layers here, lessons learned and unlearned, a balance of learning where the writer belongs and knowing that there are so many possibilities, but they can't all be true at once.

I'm not so wild anymore. / Even untutored, I learned how a woman's / meant to temper her hungers, cross her legs // and shut her mouth. But I taught myself to feel / good. Can't unlearn. (18)

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.