“I have strong ties to Louisville because I’ve lived here for 13 years, but I never really felt tied to Kentucky itself as a place the way so many Kentucky writers do,” says soft-spoken but spirited poet Erin Keane. Instead, her appeal broadens beyond the Bluegrass; her themes are relevant in a more temporal rather than spatial way. “The pop culture is really what binds all suburban kids at some point,” she says. “It’s cable television; it’s MTV, alternative music, all that stuff. It depends on when you grew up, not where you grew up.”