Processing: How Elisa Gabbert Wrote 'Normal Distance'

On a semi-regular basis, I like to interview authors I admire about their writing processes. This week I was excited to chat with one of the smartest people I know: Elisa Gabbert, whose new poetry collection, Normal Distance, I devoured on recent subway rides to and from work. Gabbert is the poetry critic at the New York Times, a fantastic and deeply thoughtful essayist—I interviewed Gabbert about her last essay collection for BOMB if you’re interested—and, of course, an excellent poet. The poems in Normal Distance blur the lines between these roles, reading as hybrid critical essays and lyrical poems. Most are written in an aphoristic style, with Gabbert meditating on different topics like boredom, sex, and madness in lines that are by turns thought-provoking, imagistic, arresting, and hilarious.