RED CLAY, Finishing Line press  — Out of print

Eve Hoffman’s is a well-seasoned voice, a storyteller’s voice, the voice of a woman whose girlhood in the south – dirt roads and damp sheets on clotheslines; bombed synagogues and segregation and the Ku Klux Klan – is evoked here, along with her seasons as daughter and mother and wife and widow, in loving detail, in rich remembrance.

Cecilia Woloch, poet

An authentic Southern voice with a universal chord, Eve Hoffman’s poetry continues down that remarkable path of great Southern writers before her. In Red Clay she tells of children, parents, a husband, school, tragedy, friendship, war and love. Set against a background of sky and earth, her poetry testifies to the enduring power and appeal of place.  

Jamil Zainaldin, President, Georgia Humanities Council

Miss Lizzie’s Kitchen

Turnip greens, green beans, green tomatoes
in the garden just outside Miss Lizzie’s screen door,
Mason jars of yellow-orange peaches,
dense purple-red beets, bread and butter pickles;
Slow-cooked chicken dripping from the bone –
she had raised the chicken, wrung its neck,
watched it flap and flop all over the yard,
blood soaking the ground.
Her father took her out of school at ten,
put her to work in the Georgia fields,
Girls don’t need to learn to read.

Sweet acrid collards, creamed corn,
Big Boy and Beefsteak tomatoes.

Once Miss Lizzie was allowed to vote
she never missed an election. In Sunday-best,
hair freed from the rag she tied around it
during the week and braided into a crown,
she rode to the polls with my mother who wore
gathered skirts, tailored blouses
and sweater sets, a soft bun at the nape
of her neck, a little rouge her only make-up.
Ages identical, skin colors and stations distinct,
these women named one another “Sister,”
shared five decades of secrets,
I’m gonna take what I know to the grave,
so jus’ don’t ask.
But at eighty-five she told me of the day
she stood between my mother’s parents
until they made peace – no other details,
told me of anger, still, with her father
for cutting short her education,
I could have been something!

Chestnuts freed from porcupine burrs,
sweet potato pies cooling on the windowsill.

Warmth flooded Miss Lizzie’s winter kitchen,
sweat beads lined her summer brow,
one-eighth Cherokee. We were forbidden
to mention her Indian heritage; she’d been
taught Indian blood is dirty.

We wondered if that one-eighth accounted
for her acute hearing, her dead-eye shot
with a .22 Remington rifle, her care for others, black and white equally.
Every so often she’d come by the house,
Can I borrow a little change?
always for someone else – for bail, for brakes,
a funeral, a back alley abortion or to repair one.
We knew better than to ask,
or to mention her husband,
succumbed to syphilis before I was born.

Black-eyed peas shelled into a white enameled pot,
butter rounds crosshatched with a knife handle,
a black iron skillet of steaming corn bread.

He Taught Them How to Shovel

He taught our children
how to lift dirt
with the face of a shovel –
the bend of knees,
the crook of elbows,
the turn of shoulders,
the twist of wrists –
the rhythm of a job well done.

Twilight near midnight
his heart is at the end,
Our children and I
hold his hands,
finger his toes,
talk to him,
to one another across him –
to ease his travel
to ease our last kisses.

The polished walnut box

is lowered, hands release ropes;
it catches half way
then settles at the bottom.
Rabbi Tam spills first earth
onto the coffin,
hands me the shovel.
I spill earth onto the box,
hand the shovel to our children.
They borrow a five dollar bill,
drop it into the grave,
Travelin’ money Dad,
You always made sure we had travelin’ money.

Our son and daughters shovel
the frozen Connecticut earth
into the empty space –
earth on wood,
earth on earth,
earth on earth,
until they have buried their father.