Studies: Joint Memories

About the Book

Margaret Schuyler Sternbergh wrote these poems over the course of her life. Written at a time when women were meant to be docile and submissive, they reveal a vital and passionate spirit. They touch on the death of a child, on the joy of love, and the pain of unrequited love, on the wonder of man, and despair at his destructiveness. They reveal a life-long struggle for justice and goodness. Not discovered until after her death, the poems are remarkable for their lyrical beauty and intensity of feeling. They are presented here as a remembrance of her indomitable spirit.


Book Review:

Some of the most treasured poetry works in American culture were dug up posthumously. “Studies: Joint Memories’ is a collection of poetry from Margaret Schuyler Sternbergh, published decades after her death in her honor. A work of nearly a century of life, her poems ring out true and drip with experience. “Studies” is a fine collection with much to be enjoyed for poetry lovers. “Out of this Moment” : Out of the moment you might take/Rubies, sapphire, pearls beyond price,/Just for the miracle of faith,/Pure and undefiled as the hour/When rain slips down the heavens/Like the mercy of God that it is,/Out of this moment, you might take/A joy and beauty that only you can make.

Micah Andrew
Reviewer

About the Author

Margaret Schuyler Sternbergh lived from 1887 until 1982. Her father, James Hervey Sternbergh was the founder of the Reading Bolt and Nut Works which later became Bethlehem Steel. Her mother, Mary Candace Dodds, was the oldest of twelve children born on a farm in Burlington, Vermont. Margaret, or Mardi as she was known, attended the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. as a teenager, and then boarding school in Weisbaden, Germany. She was an independent spirit, an artist, a musician and a poet. These poems, dedicated to her beloved sister, Gertrude, were not found until after her death. They are published here now in her honor.