Sarah Kay &Russell Quinn

See a city through someone else’s eyes

Part scavenger hunt, part audio experience, this new, free iOS app is an invitation to explore a city—and encounter different ways of noticing and thinking and being. It’s fun, especially if you bring a friend along. It’s meditative, even on a crowded sidewalk. 

Poet Sarah Kay and artist, designer, and programmer Russell Quinn have gathered a collection of poems—intimate, funny, surprising, moving—and pinned each one to a location on a map in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York. A poem for a school yard. A poem for a cemetery. A poem for a dog park. Walk to a location, and a poem is revealed for you to hear aloud. Two or three minutes of insight, or beauty, or joy. 

The experience features authors Hala Alyan, Cameron Awkward-Rich, Noah Arhm Choi, Shira Erlichman, J. Jennifer Espinoza, Kat Giordano, Aracelis Girmay, Major Jackson, Nancy Kangas, Keith Leonard, Mary Oliver, Willie Perdomo, Nicole Sealey, Danez Smith, and more. 

It will be released in partnership with The Rumpus and available soon in the App Store. Sign up below for Duettist’s mailing list and we’ll let you know. 

 

Sarah Kay is a New Yorker. A poetry writer and reader. An educator. The founder and co-director of Project VOICE. A podcast enthusiast. A postcard lover. The author of five books of poetry including B, No Matter the Wreckage, The Type, All Our Wild Wonder, and A Little Daylight Left. A celebrated performer in over 30 countries. An occasional editor for Write Bloody Publishing. A gemini. A mediocre driver at best. A musical theater geek. A smoothie expert. An education advocate and occasional keynote speaker. An alum of the United Nations International School and a graduate of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. An alum of Brown University. An alum of Brown University Graduate School’s Masters Program in the Art of Teaching Secondary English. Sarah Kay was a TED speaker and TED podcast host. A New Arizona Fellow for New America. A writer in residence at Hedgebrook. A Kundiman fellow. A Serenbe artist in residence. An artist in residence of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. A co-columnist of “PoetryRx” for The Paris Review online. A co-curator of the Ours Poetica web series. The first-ever feature on PBS News Hour’s “Brief But Spectacular” series. Raised by an unruly group of poets in New York City.

Russell Quinn is an artist, designer, and programmer. He works independently as False Vacuum. He was previously employed as McSweeney’s Digital Media Director where he developed and implemented their e-book strategy, and relaunched their popular humor website and store. Before that, he cofounded multinational digital agency Spoiled Milk, and made tools for games consoles at Sony. In 2009, he invented the first subscription-based iPhone app in the publishing industry. In 2012, he cocreated The Silent History, a Webby Award-winning digital novel for iOS. In 2015, he cocreated The Pickle Index, a story told via a fictional recipe-sharing app. His work has been recognized by the Los Angeles Times, Apple, Sundance, SXSW, Wired, Time, Core77, Creative Review, and the BBC. Russell left the UK in 2005 and has lived in Denmark, Switzerland, and rural California. He is currently based in Los Angeles and working on Linda & Joan, a narrative video game about the worst year of his life. He is also a trainee therapist.

 

Duettist inspires and supports creative collaborations between pairs of people who do different things. It was launched in 2025 in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators.

 

PERCEPTION BOX ^TM QUESTIONS FROM UNLIKELY COLLABORATORS

1. What is the most beautiful thing in the world to you?
2. What do you find beautiful that others don’t?
3. When have you experienced a profound sense of connection with others, and what did you learn from it?
4. If you could travel through time and choose a new life, where would you go and who would you be and why?
5. Do you feel understood?
6. What memory makes you most happy?

 

To learn more about Unlikely Collaborators and Perception Box please visit unlikelycollaborators.com.