We are as quiet as fire salamanders. Her novels have received numerous awards, and for "You Do Not Die," she was honored with the German Book Prize in 2009. Now, Kathrin Schmidt returns to her second beloved genre: poetry. A delight for readers, as these poems are so clever, inventive with language, and sensual that one wants to read each one aloud. They are poetic journeys that Kathrin Schmidt invites us on: to remote, often tongue-twisting places like Los Guachimontones or Paleski Radyaytsina-Ekalagichny - but they are also journeys into language itself. For here, a space is always measured and traversed, closely observed, interpreted, and reinterpreted. The poem, for Schmidt, is a medium of surprise, where every line break releases unexpected meanings. Archival word material is carefully unearthed and combined with concepts from our present.