Sherry Robbins

Under World

“This remarkable work fuses a poetic sequence of private grief over the death of two siblings with an archetypal quester’s descent to–and return from–the underworld where all pilgrims must go. Sherry Robbins, like her spirit guide Emily Dickinson, speaks as both vulnerable sufferer and impersonal sibyl. So distinctive is her voice, so intense its harsh music, that we go without question where she leads and are grateful for the experience. A brave, bold, mysterious book.”

—Carl Dennis, Pulitzer Prize Winner 2002

or, The Whale

“Into this first and oldest cradle / I invite you, reader.” from “The Fossil Whale” by Sherry Robbins. “me in in in / in the boat / of my body” from “The Chase – First Day” by Sherry Robbins. This is her book of poetry. I read her returning to this poetry. Sherry Robbins, ubiquitous saillore at voyage in the allegorical myth of and in her life, explores her journey, the wovenings of woman currents, root drinker and her map of heaven. She is her life of adored poetry and summoning her poetry is here a balance of all the corners. She discovers that water is where Sherry Robbins stands upon or, The Whale.

—Michael Basinski

Snapshots of Paradise

If Sherry Robbins’ poems, lean and fierce, are compelled by her courage, then they are propelled by her sly curiosity. Robbins’ voice is delicate in its top notes, but she uses a wilder, more basic sound, too, that can be sensed as emanating from a being “red in tooth and claw.”

— Mary Richert