Local poet Sarah Stern honors parents in new book

The cover of Stern’s new book features a painting from French artist Henri Matisse, a reference to the years Stern’s parents spent in Paris.

Courtesy Sarah Stern

Longtime Riverdale resident Sarah Stern launched her fourth book “Dear Letters in the Red Box” last month, a collection of poems inspired by writings exchanged between her parents when they first became married. 

Her mother, a refugee from Germany who escaped the Holocaust, and her father, a first-generation Russian-American, met in New York City and eloped. Her dad left for Paris to attend medical school, and her mom joined him a few months later. 

They stayed in Paris for five years, a period Stern says she thinks of as a “high point in their life.” Neither her mom or dad spoke French when they arrived, but both learned quickly. Throughout her childhood, Stern remembers her parents speaking to each other in the language when they wanted to have a private conversation the kids couldn’t understand. 

After her mom’s death in 2013, Stern discovered the writings between her parents from this period. She had lost her dad four years before that, and wasn’t ready to unpack the box. She needed more time to unravel what it meant to lose her loved ones, and what to do with the grief. 

“I don’t think you ever really know your parents, you’re just kind of guessing who they were and who they were to you,” Stern said. 

Finally, she found the strength to start combing through the papers, and for the last five years she’s been working on “Dear Letters in the Red Box.” The writings were notes of admiration and longing for one another — and the feeling it evoked in Stern became the thread running through each new poem she wrote. 

One excerpt, written by her father reads “The leaves outside my windows are the color of autumn. It makes my heart feel sad and glad at the same time, shatzele,” a Yiddish word that translates to little treasure. He continued, “I love you so much it hurts.” 

The cover of Stern’s book is a copy of French artist Henri Matisse’s “The Red Studio” painting, as another way to pay homage to her parents’ time in Paris. 

In other poems, she drew from her love of the natural world, which she said was fostered by growing up in Spuyten Duyvil. Only blocks away from the MTA Metro-North Railroad station, she recalled walking over the tracks and along the Hudson River with her mother, who was also a poet. 

One piece, titled “Spuyten Duyvil” describes walking from the train, and seeing a dead, yellow-shafted Northern flicker bird. “Must have hit a window of The Henry,” she says, a building on Palisade Avenue. 

Another, “Flesh” mentions the Henry Hudson Parkway, and “Her Clip-Ons” describes Stern remembering things about her mother while at Stop & Shop on Broadway. 

It was her mom who sparked Stern’s initial interest in writing poetry. In middle school, the two sat down together to write a poem after Stern was assigned to “bring something creative” for class. It came naturally, and she kept up the hobby quietly. 

While a student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, a similar assignment was given, and Stern turned in a poem once again. Her professor at the time encouraged her “whatever you do in your other work, don’t forget about your poetry,” Stern remembered. 

She felt motivated to start taking creative writing workshop classes — which she now teaches — and began thinking of herself as a poet. 

She’s released three other collections since 2011, titled “Another Word for Love,” “But Today is Different” and  “We Have Been Lucky in the Midst of Misfortune.” 

For Stern, poetry is something that needs to be sat with. It’s compact, she said, and all of the sudden it can elicit feelings that are upsetting or require attention. This causes some people to have an aversion to it. But, she’s noticed that in the face of difficult times, people gravitate towards the art form. 

“They’re looking for a place to find comfort, or see how past generations dealt with conflict,” Stern said, later adding, “There’s such potential to make people feel that they are in the moment and experiencing something deep, if they only gave it a chance.”