Houston, Texas – February 9, 2026 – Press Release:
Saint Julian Press is proud to announce a new book of poetry, TIME IS, WAS, WILL BE, by author Max Bialer, to be published on February 28, 2026. TIME IS, WAS, WILL BE is about remembrance and memory. It's 4 1/2 years to the day since Bialer's wife, Lenora, died of breast cancer; he grapples with the time since she's been gone, which feels like just a few months.
Matt Bialer's poignant poem, Time Was, Is, Will Be, is a deeply moving reflection on how loss and grief change our perception of time. It is also an ode to love as the great healer, even if it leaves painful scars on the soul. Finally, it is a chant of the hope and redemption we can find in our everyday life, in the most menial things that suddenly shine with a powerful light. In a word, it is beautiful.
—Seb Doubinsky
MISSING SIGNAL
THE SUM OF ALL THINGS
Einstein apparently wrote that “… People like us… know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Matt Bialer, in Time Is, Was, Will Be, explores how it feels to live this truth, moment by moment. In his gentle, honest way, Bialer pulls us into his present, a place beyond our usual, linear ways of thinking about time, loss, and love. It’s a state of being in which the pain of lingering grief coexists with the delight of new affinities and small victories -- the ability to enjoy dinner at a memory-haunted restaurant, or the pleasure of finding the just-right birthday cake for a new love.
Time Is, Was, Will Be is rich, alive, and true, and its sweetness and unflinching honesty will linger in your mind, no doubt, for some time to come.
—Sharon Guskin
THE FORGETTING TIME
TIME IS, WAS, WILL BE
It’s Sunday, November 5th. Four and a half years to the day since Bialer’s wife, Lenora, died of breast cancer on May 5th, also a Sunday. He wrestles with whether it feels like a long time since she’s been gone or like just a few months. Grief makes time fluctuate.
He used to count how many Sundays had passed since her death – like swimming in an endless ocean, moving further and further away from the shore. He’d count how many haircuts he’d gotten since then. He remembers scrambling together her last Passover meal because it was an important holiday to her and he was trying to keep it all together, to enjoy the ordinary.
Their daughter Izzy is now 21. She was 16 when her mother died. To her, that’s a long, long time ago – on the other side of the world. Today is Daylight Saving Time and the longest day of the year. In a few days, Bialer will have dinner at his girlfriend of three and a half years, Mary’s, apartment and celebrate her birthday with Izzy and Mary’s daughter, Samantha. He is now living a different life.
Sometimes, it feels like time isn’t real. Were his 30-plus years with Lenora real? He thought he had stopped counting how many haircuts he’d gotten. But he hasn’t stopped. He can’t. He feels guilty about leaving it all behind, even while enjoying life—this new life. He posts that 4½ years ago will always be “that day.” Is time real? Is it just an artificial construct of the human mind?
He's been assigned to buy the cake for Mary’s birthday. He stands in an Old-World bakery in his Brooklyn neighborhood, searching for the perfect cake: a yellow sponge cake topped with chocolate frosting. He notices a very old black-and-white photo taped to the wall of the late Mayor Ed Koch buying a cake in this very store. It is behind a clear plastic bag with flour splotches. He realizes that here in the bakery—time is, was, and will be.
Matt Bialer is the author of over a dozen poetry collections, including ALWAYS SAY GOODNIGHT (KYSO Flash, 2020), MAZE(Finishing Line Press, 2021), VIEW-MASTER LAND (Finishing Line Press, 2023), MATRIX (Saint Julian Press, 2023), and FANTASTIC VOYAGE (Stalking Horse Press, 2025). His poems have appeared in many print and online journals, including Le Zaporogue, Green Mountains Review, Gobbet, Forklift Ohio, and H_NGM_N. In addition, Matt is an acclaimed black-and-white street photographer whose work has been widely exhibited. Some of his images are in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of the City of New York, and The New York Public Library. He is also an accomplished watercolor landscape painter with work in many private collections.
Publication Date: February 28, 2026
Paperback: $18.00
Publisher: Saint Julian Press, Inc.
Language: English
Paperback: 54 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-955194-50-1
