Through pain and memory how do we move forward as people and how do we heal ourselves from a painful past?

“lay me down beside the truth of this land” 54

The language, heartbreak, sadness and nostalgia of Red clay suite by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers felt familiar through the lens of someone with a completely differently history and past than myself but why did I relate to so much of her poems? Themes I felt closely connected to were a contemptuous relationship with the father, love and fondest for the mother, complicated relationships with cis men and connection to land.

 First I have to say, my favorite part of the Red Clay Suite is Jeffers speak of land, her fondness and nostalgia towards the land of the South and her mother. I love the image of Red clay, it makes me think of the texture and how this soil is rich in nutrients. Clay also holds plenty of water and can make many things like home, utensils, pots for food and water. Jeffers also references clay to her mother “my red clay mother, muse” (40). There is a tenderness towards the land and her mother in a way that she connects two in this line. She also speaks of land and memory in The subject of gardening, “My mother looks at the empty field, tells you a hard story, I don’t care what they are trying to grow here now. All that there used to be cotton and it wont give them nothing else” (54). This speaks on sorrow of the past, and how the land is forever changed because of slavery.

Also, Jeffers speaks a lot on her father, “my father, kind to strangers, slapping one of us upside our heads at home, searching for beauty in everything except his family” (47). She speaks of a father that was different behind closed doors, a man that made the women in his life feel unlovable hence like the land they too were damaged.

One poem that stood out to me and felt relatable was What is written for me: “I want someone who sired a girl. Who should’ve stayed unborn, this shameful woman child, an easy prophecy” (45). There were so many relatable feelings of being a child of shame and unworthiness of love. Jeffers speak on toxic masculinity about “one man screamed at me one night, liquor lighting him up inside” (44) woo! I tear up reading and writing that part because it’s so damn relatable then ending the poem on the note of an unloving father was all too relatable and I know I am no the only one which makes me that much more grateful that Jeffers wrote this book, through pain and memory how do we move forward as people and how do we heal ourselves from a painful past?