Praise for When Time Was Suspended

Over the years, Julia Nunnally Duncan has established herself as an acolyte of Appalachia, a daughter of song, with a voice as true as a plumb line, and a capacious gaze that stirs her to unforgettable language. Her latest volume of poetry, When Time Was Suspended—a fascinating, richly imagined conflation of history, ethnography, genealogy, ancestry, family Bible, and a suite of ekphrastic masterpieces—only adds to her growing, formidable oeuvre. Duncan’s books are dazzling, indisputable knockouts, and this might be her best

—Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate & Author of Light at the Seam

When Time Was Suspended features Julia Nunnally Duncan in full possession of her craft as she renders moments in time with haunting sensitivity, turning sights into insights, sounds into subjects. Nostalgic, prophetic, and profound, these poems of family and place tell aching stories about moments and scenes long gone that, nevertheless, persist.

—Allen Mendenhall, Author of A Glooming Peace This Morning

About the Author

Julia Nunnally Duncan is an award-winning author of eleven books of prose and poetry, including a new essay collection All We Have Loved (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her upbringing in a Western North Carolina textile town plays predominantly in her work, which is filled with family, community, and history. An alumnus of Warren Wilson College, Julia taught English and Humanities at McDowell Technical Community College for over thirty years. She now devotes her creative energies to writing and playing classical piano. She lives in Marion, NC, with her husband, Steve, a mountain woodcarver, and enjoys spending time with him and their daughter, Annie.