Sisters in Time by Rosemary Herbert

I enjoy and admire Rosemary Herbert’s fresh way of thinking about the past with all the resemblances differences and revelations it offers the present. The one pagan girl buried along with 96 Christians. Shaped poems and sonnets, archaeology and mystery. I salute this poet’s distinctive wit and intensity.

–ROBERT PINSKY, whose most recent book of poems is Proverbs of Limbo, served three terms as U.S. Poet Laureate. His video project can be explored at www.favoritepoem.org.

Marrying the archeologist’s patience and with the poet’s heightened gift of perception, Rosemary Herbert reminds us that all our histories are entangled in mystery, which is to say, all lives—past, present, and future—lay entangled, both the lives we know with certainty, and the ones we merely feel by way of their dusty bones. Somehow, these beautifully formed lines, despite the strictures of form and meter, suggest ideas and images ready to take flight. Although her voice carries a deceptively, gentle, bedside manner, she cleverly uses this stance to charm and disarm. Again and again, we are reminded to ask not for whom the bell tolls. Long established as one of our pre-eminent prose stylists, for Rosemary Herbert, this is something new, rare, and wonderful, this most profound of poetry debuts, marvelous, wholly present, and ours for the taking.

–JEFFREY LEVINE, whose latest book After the Party will be published in 2026 by Salmon Poetry, is the founder and artistic director of Tupelo Press.

In this brave and deeply original work, Rosemary Herbert invites us to befriend the past, hear history’s call, and become more patient in the face of death. Mysteries appear before us, as the dead return to speak: “I’m still here, just listen.” The poet brings a “tenderness akin to reverence” to her work of weaving wonder and washing skulls. Here we commune with the dead and find a way to rescue them from oblivion. We become witness to history, the archeologist’s accomplices.

–DEBORAH LEIPZIGER, author of Story & Bone and Flower Map, is a poet, author, and advisor on sustainability and human rights issues.