Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958 and has settled in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s.
In 1955, she transferred to the University of Freiburg, where she discovered the writings of Robert Musil and participated in a protest against a lecture given by Heidegger.
In 1958, he won a Major Hopwood Prize, sending most of the money to Rosmarie to pay for her passage to the United States.
She also became active in literary, musical and artistic circles around the university and the wider Ann Arbor community.
This was the beginning of Burning Deck, which was to become one of the most influential small press publishers of innovative poetry in the United States.
Today her work is variously characterized as verse experiment, philosophical statement and personal narrative.
[citation needed] Rosmarie Waldrop has given readings and published in many parts of Europe as well as the United States.