But Today Is Different

Endorsements for But Today Is Different



"Sarah Stern has written an utterly frank, headlong, passionate, and deeply engendered book of a woman in mid-life. She writes out of her own longings, her devotions as a daughter and a mother, her fiery supplications. But Today Is Different may be printed with ink, but it was written with fire."

--Edward Hirsch, author of A Poet's Glossary and Gabriel



"Sarah Stern's first collection of poems, But Today Is Different, is a marvel. Wise, compassionate, erotic, plain-spoken, studded with wonderful moments--a black goat with blue eyes, an aging mother's clavicle 'like a Calder mobile,' an iconic lipstick stain on a coffee cup--Stern's vision puts a shine on the ordinary (a trip to Macy's, a scraped knee) and gives it back to us as something wondrous and new. A new voice, in which readers will hear echoes of Philip Levine and Grace Paley . . . and a real achievement."

--Cynthia Zarin, author of The Ada Poems and An Enlarged Heart: A Personal History.

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Praise for Another Word For Love



"In Another Word for Love, Sarah Stern searches for meaning in a broken world. She delights in things around her, whether the El in New York or trees in New Hampshire, finding in them keys to her inner life. I read this book in the light of her clarity, exactitude, and fine intelligence."

--Grace Schulman, author of Without A Claim



"Vivid and opaque, innocent and sophisticated, Sarah Stern's poems in Another Word for Love are so full of life, never more than when they hint at death, that they refuse to sit still on the page. It's us she's catching in these glimmering nets."

--Karen Durbin, Elle



"Sarah Stern is a poet to watch and relish."

--Jewish Book World



REVIEWS



"But Today is Different by Sarah Stern (Resource Publications) is a collection of 60 eloquent poems. The volume is dedicated to the memory of the poet's mother, and many of the poems evoke presence and memory, loss and death, elevating ordinary moments into holiness and beauty."

--The Jewish Week



"In But Today Is Different Sarah Stern writes in the ancient tradition of erotic mysticism while grounding her poems in familiar American life. This poetry is womanly, drawn from the midst of life. The speaker tends to her dying mother, applies for jobs, shops for suits at a mall, imagines how she'll feel when her children leave home, and has wild sexual fantasies on the subway. Oh -- and she has conversations with a mystical voice, a spiritual guide of sorts.



The different elements are braided together into a fully-lived, fully alive book of poems."

--Mom Egg Review