“I am very interested in cities and places, and in having conversations with them. Research and lists are big for me. Often, lists I make become poems unto themselves. Notes from my research make some of the strongest lines in my poems, I’ve found, or, like the lists, turn into poems of their own. I began my book The Straits in response to the sparse but lyrical narration in a Russian film, Palms, so I find listening for refrains and cadences—anywhere and everywhere—then responding to them highly evocative. It’s not something I do deliberately, as some do by listening to music, but I always find myself tuning into certain rhythms when I’m out and about or in something I’m reading and later realize that it has entered my work.”
—Kristin Palm, author of The Straits (Palm Press, 2009)