Poet from Presque Isle muses on queer awakening as a marriage dissolves

Maine Poet Melissa Crowe Releases “Abider,” a New Exploration of Marriage, Queerness and Sappho

Presque Isle, Maine – Melissa Crowe, the Presque Isle native who has already earned a reputation as one of Maine’s most inventive contemporary poets, has issued her third collection, Abider. The book, which blends themes of marital dissolution with queer coming‑of‑age, is a meditation on letting go, on reclaiming pleasure and desire, and on the power of self‑definition that can only be forged in the aftermath of a relationship.

Crowe’s new volume opens with an epigraph from Sappho—“I swear, against my will I leave you”—taken from Anne Carson’s translation. When asked why that line, she said, “I think what happens with the epigraph usually is that it helps me judge whether I really do have a book.” The Sappho quotation, she explained, “helps me judge whether I really do have a book,” and its resonance with the first poem in the manuscript made her feel the collection was coherent enough to be published.

The book is divided into four sections, a structure Crowe says was inspired by a class she taught on the sequential poem. “The beginning exercise was that I had them make mixtapes,” she recalled. “When you were making a tape, you had decisions to make about how long the gaps were between songs, about what you’re speaking of.” She likened the manuscript to a cassette tape with multiple starts and stops, noting that the modular nature of mixtapes helped her think about how each section could stand alone yet still contribute to the overall arc.

Crowe’s poetic language draws on a range of influences, from ancient Sappho to contemporary voices such as Richard Siken, Linda Gregg and William Stafford. She employs couplets throughout the book, a form she acknowledges carries the baggage of the sonnet’s expectations of love and argument. “You can’t write in the couplet without being aware of the baggage that it’s dragging in,” she told reporters.

The collection also tackles the confessional mode of poetry. Crowe says she sees confession as a craft, not a natural truth: “I regard myself as an inheritor of lots of what came out of the confessional mode,” she said. “It is the result of deliberate craft choices that create the impression of an elision of the difference between the speaker and the poet on purpose.” She argues that poetry’s lack of a “fiction” or “non‑fiction” contract allows it to explore psychic or emotional realities without the pressure to declare them either fully true or wholly invented.

Gender and power are central to many of the poems. In “So What If I Was Born Wanting Both,” Crowe writes, “Girls and women are trained to make themselves small, to ignore their own needs, to become disconnected from their own feelings, desires and anxieties in particularly gendered ways.” She describes how the patriarchal structure of marriage can trap individuals, yet also how that very structure can provide the tools for resistance. “Those mechanisms are available because we were trained to respond to them before we were ever in the relationships where they seem to be playing out,” she explains.

One of the most striking moments in the book occurs in “The Speaker’s Husband.” At a party, the narrator’s husband asks, “Are you going to be gay now?” Crowe reflected on the question: “If it’s that he did not know me, it was a deliberate not knowing because that question reveals that he did know me quite well.” She added, “I was gay inside my marriage. There’s no before. I haven’t become something different.” The line underscores the tension between the public and private self that Crowe navigates throughout the volume.

Crowe’s sense of place is unmistakable. She has described Presque Isle, Aroostook County, as the source of most of her “charged imagery.” “It’s the place my imagination is native to. It’s the place where most of my charged imagery arises from,” she said. “When I reach for image or story, it’s that place that comes most quickly to mind.” Even though she has lived elsewhere for much of her adult life, the rural landscape of northern Maine remains a constant in her creative vision.

Abider has been praised by critics for its deft blending of lyricism and social critique. In a region where poetry often feels like a niche pursuit, Crowe’s work has carved out a distinct space that resonates with readers grappling with questions of identity, love, and liberation. Her collection, like her earlier books, continues to push the boundaries of contemporary Maine poetry, inviting readers to consider the ways that endings can birth new forms of abundance.

The book is available now through local and national retailers, and Crowe will be traveling the state in the coming weeks to share readings and discuss her latest work.