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Carolina Clay: A Collection of Poems on Love and Loss
In her debut collection of poetry, Laura Kauffman explores the space between love and loss. Compelled by the death of her grandmother, Kauffman embarks on a journey of discovery that leads her through the themes of history and heritage, age and dementia, and – ultimately – hope and healing.
Accessible and compelling, Carolina Clay invites the reader to take a journey of their own – to be both lost and found in its pages.
PRAISE FOR CAROLINA CLAY:
“Writing in league with Mary Oliver and Jane Kenyon, Laura Kauffman tills the soil of the soul. With Carolina Clay, she beautifully uproots connectedness: between life and death, beauty and ashes, generations of a family, and the sides of ourselves that we try to separate. Most important, her poems bear witness to all that binds us to the God waiting at the end of the end of our ropes.” – Aarik Danielsen, Columbia Daily Tribune arts editor and Fathom magazine columnist
“Carolina Clay is a feast for the senses, lush with blood, dirt, and roots. Laura Kauffman has written a liturgy of grief brought on by the abandonment of place, the unavoidable decay of nature, and the lingering loss of her grandmother with dementia. Accompanied by poignant black and white photos, Carolina Clay weaves a rich tapestry shot through with the visceral beauty of heritage, faith, and the sacredness of humanity.” – Tammy Perlmutter, founder and curator of The Mudroom
“Reading Kauffman’s poetry is like putting your hands into the earth when you garden – rich and satisfying.” – Rachel Joy Welcher, author and poet of Two Funerals, Then Easter
“A warning to the reader: you'll cling to this book like a dear friend, express gratitude to it for putting words to what's buried deep inside, and tear out pages to hang on your wall. Reading this book will likely result in noticing the magic around you, and maybe finding dirt under your fingernails. Its beauty will break your heart open and fill it with something that only poetry can give.” – Hannah Estabrook, advocate and co-author of Beyond Desolate
“The poems in Laura Kauffman's Carolina Clay immediately enchanted me. But I couldn't say why. I kept reading, then suddenly paused, for there on the page the poet showed her hand: ‘There's this way...that makes you feel like going home.’ Bingo--that's exactly how I felt.” – John Blase, author and poet of The Jubilee: Poems
Accessible and compelling, Carolina Clay invites the reader to take a journey of their own – to be both lost and found in its pages.
PRAISE FOR CAROLINA CLAY:
“Writing in league with Mary Oliver and Jane Kenyon, Laura Kauffman tills the soil of the soul. With Carolina Clay, she beautifully uproots connectedness: between life and death, beauty and ashes, generations of a family, and the sides of ourselves that we try to separate. Most important, her poems bear witness to all that binds us to the God waiting at the end of the end of our ropes.” – Aarik Danielsen, Columbia Daily Tribune arts editor and Fathom magazine columnist
“Carolina Clay is a feast for the senses, lush with blood, dirt, and roots. Laura Kauffman has written a liturgy of grief brought on by the abandonment of place, the unavoidable decay of nature, and the lingering loss of her grandmother with dementia. Accompanied by poignant black and white photos, Carolina Clay weaves a rich tapestry shot through with the visceral beauty of heritage, faith, and the sacredness of humanity.” – Tammy Perlmutter, founder and curator of The Mudroom
“Reading Kauffman’s poetry is like putting your hands into the earth when you garden – rich and satisfying.” – Rachel Joy Welcher, author and poet of Two Funerals, Then Easter
“A warning to the reader: you'll cling to this book like a dear friend, express gratitude to it for putting words to what's buried deep inside, and tear out pages to hang on your wall. Reading this book will likely result in noticing the magic around you, and maybe finding dirt under your fingernails. Its beauty will break your heart open and fill it with something that only poetry can give.” – Hannah Estabrook, advocate and co-author of Beyond Desolate
“The poems in Laura Kauffman's Carolina Clay immediately enchanted me. But I couldn't say why. I kept reading, then suddenly paused, for there on the page the poet showed her hand: ‘There's this way...that makes you feel like going home.’ Bingo--that's exactly how I felt.” – John Blase, author and poet of The Jubilee: Poems
- GenresPoetry
94 pages, Paperback
Published November 18, 2019
About the author
Laura Kauffman
4 books23 followersLaura Kauffman, MA, is a writer, poet, and spiritual director. She is the author of three poetry collections ("Ordinary Things," "What Remains," and "Carolina Clay: A Collection of Poems on Love and Loss" (Dustlings Press)) and one book on contemplative prayer (Baker Books, coming fall 2026). Her work has appeared in Fathom Mag, The Clayjar Review, Collected Online Arts Magazine, The Mudroom, and more. Laura lives in the loess hills of Iowa with her favorite humans — three boys and their dad. Find out more about Laura on Instagram, Substack, and her website.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 31, 2019
Carolina Clay is a feast for the senses, lush with blood, dirt, and roots. Laura Kauffman has written a liturgy of grief brought on by the abandonment of place, the unavoidable decay of nature, and the lingering loss of her grandmother with dementia. Accompanied by poignant black and white photos, Carolina Clay weaves a rich tapestry shot through with the visceral beauty of heritage, faith, and the sacredness of humanity.
February 4, 2020
Reading Kauffman's poetry is like putting your hands into the earth when you garden - rich and satisfying.
March 21, 2020
These are the first poems read after/during the 2020 pandemic. After knowing what is coming, but not knowing what is coming. During the beginning, before the next, the rest unable to be conjured, imagined, believed. The poet writes of loss, grief, sorrow, and of the land, things I can relate to, and they are quietly earthy and gorgeous, like Wendell Berry. The poet writes never knowing what pandemic feels like, but these poems know, somehow, because we have lost so much (innocence, freedom of movement, of simple connection) when we haven’t lost the rest yet.
I have been choked with this dry, painful feeling from deep in my gut that travels to the back of my throat, that has blocked my tears, that have been stifled and strangled by collective fear and personal fear, and poetry opens the channels so they can flow as they have to, and this poet knows not to “be fooled/by the well-worn path/every inch/cost her something,” and I am grateful I was gifted this book by a friend of the poet who knows my heart and my sorrow.
When I read the opening poem for the first time a few months ago, I closed the book. I wasn’t ready to negotiate those feelings in me, the feelings, this second time around also brimming with fear for my loved ones, myself, the world. But poetry only breaks you open so it can put you back together, so your heart can be open to the world forever through the heartbroken cracks. Lyrics to Bob Dylan at the end of the review (try to find the version that Antony sings on an AIDS benefit album Dark was the Night) are included because that song came on as I was typing out the first poem, and well, I needed both to cry, to release my fear.
Everything you read from now on out will mean something different after the pandemic.
Know Your Ground
Despite my blistered hands
And calloused knuckles
And over-taxed knees
I cannot grow tomatoes
It’s the soil, they said,
Have your tested your levels?
Calcium. Sand.
Nitrogen. Clay.
You must know your ground.
But only lately
have I walked this land
Of my inheritance,
Only recently looked
At the wild mystery
That lives beneath my toes,
Only newly raked
My fingers through earth
And wondered,
Is this bone that eroded
To silt in my hand?
Life that bled iron
To fashion this bed?
History that tastes
So sweet on my tongue?
In my frivolous hunger
I surrendered my birthright.
In your just disapproval
I fled from my ground
And now I fear this dormant soil
Will never grow for me.
Carolina Clay
Roads amble for miles
Over wonders and wilds
But you are my home
burning bushes
Watch: it always comes
Right when you expect it least.
The light slants, enchants;
Your spirit, wakening,hums
And rouses the sleeping beast.
Tie a String Around my Finger
They’re slipping away; my memories of...
The roads:
Home
From home
The feel:
Hand
In palm
The naming:
This child belongs
To me.
But anchored,
Unmoving,
The sound
Of her laugh.
Encore
The first swallows
Of the season
Looped the pines
Rocketed upward
Dare-deviled madly
In a carnival sky
Shot from a cannon
To the roar of applause
Contrails mapped
On flapping clouds
She traced her finger
Along their path
The way she had traced
The lines of veins
On her mother’s hand
As they waited for death
No applause
Just softly hummed
Lullabies that one
Once sang
To the other
In a petal pink room
With blanket and bed
A flapping curtain
In softer spring breeze
Now offered back
gently
From one to the other
To soothe once more
The fear of the night
The closing of curtains
And the end of the show
Good Dog
Blankets thrown off
Lay her here
Between us in bed
Fur stroked
Bodies wrapped
Around waning warmth
May it be so for me
She whisperers
One day
Flanked by those
Who treasure most
My easy being
A midnight vigil
Eyes peeking
At staggered breath
Pup between
mistress and man
Finally, sleep
A silly thing,
Sighed the man
To love so deep
A kiss on the paws
The merciful sorrow
Of a life that mattered
Use-less
I’m learning to love the ground that lies
Beneath my feet in the fallow season
The ground of the dormant, of sleeping life
That carries no promise of certain production
The ground of the nourished, fed by the death
Of the things that once bloomed
The ground of the passive, that simply receives
The rains of the fall and the rest of winter
The ground that cannot be measured
By the brightness of green breaking the rows
Or the richness of fruits that fall from the vines
Or the service it pays to some greater end
But holds its value in the simple act
Of embracing its wild and wonderful being.
It Is Well
When peace like a river attendeth my way
In hospice beds with potent meds
And the babbling sound of the IV drip
When sorrow like sea billows roll
In teeth ground to shards that chink
On the shores of words that cannot be said
Whatever my lot
Even decades of loss as the memories
Ride on the tides, gone away
Thou hast taught me to say
With a fire in the soul that blazed out of control
Even when breakers thundered and rolled
It is well with my soul.
Coda:
Bob Dylan:
I was young when I left home,
And I been out a'ramblin' 'round,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
To my home, Lord, to my home,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
It was just the other day
I was drinkin' on my pay
When I met an old friend I used to know.
He said your mother's dead and gone,
Your baby sister's all gone wrong,
And your daddy needs you home right away.
Not a shirt on my back,
Not a penny on my name.
Well I can't go home this a'way.
This a'way, Lord Lord Lord,
I can't go home this a'way.
If you miss the train I'm on,
Count the days I'm gone,
And you'll hear that whistle blow a hundred miles.
A hundred miles, a hundred, baby,
Lord Lord Lord,
And you'll hear that whistle blow a hundred miles.
When I's playin' on the track,
Maw would come and whip me back,
On them tressles down by ol' Jim McKay's.
When I pay the debt I owe
To the commissary store,
I will pawn my watch and chain and go home.
Oh home, Lord Lord Lord,
I will pawn my watch and chain and go home.
I used to tell my Maw sometimes,
When I see them ridin' blinds,
Gonna make me a home out in the wind.
In the wind, Lord, in the wind,
Make me a home out in the wind.
I don't like it in the wind,
I want to go back home again,
But I can't go home this a'way.
This a'way, Lord Lord Lord,
And I can't go home this a'way.
I was young when I left home,
And I been all a' ramblin' 'round,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
To my home, Lord Lord Lord,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
I have been choked with this dry, painful feeling from deep in my gut that travels to the back of my throat, that has blocked my tears, that have been stifled and strangled by collective fear and personal fear, and poetry opens the channels so they can flow as they have to, and this poet knows not to “be fooled/by the well-worn path/every inch/cost her something,” and I am grateful I was gifted this book by a friend of the poet who knows my heart and my sorrow.
When I read the opening poem for the first time a few months ago, I closed the book. I wasn’t ready to negotiate those feelings in me, the feelings, this second time around also brimming with fear for my loved ones, myself, the world. But poetry only breaks you open so it can put you back together, so your heart can be open to the world forever through the heartbroken cracks. Lyrics to Bob Dylan at the end of the review (try to find the version that Antony sings on an AIDS benefit album Dark was the Night) are included because that song came on as I was typing out the first poem, and well, I needed both to cry, to release my fear.
Everything you read from now on out will mean something different after the pandemic.
Know Your Ground
Despite my blistered hands
And calloused knuckles
And over-taxed knees
I cannot grow tomatoes
It’s the soil, they said,
Have your tested your levels?
Calcium. Sand.
Nitrogen. Clay.
You must know your ground.
But only lately
have I walked this land
Of my inheritance,
Only recently looked
At the wild mystery
That lives beneath my toes,
Only newly raked
My fingers through earth
And wondered,
Is this bone that eroded
To silt in my hand?
Life that bled iron
To fashion this bed?
History that tastes
So sweet on my tongue?
In my frivolous hunger
I surrendered my birthright.
In your just disapproval
I fled from my ground
And now I fear this dormant soil
Will never grow for me.
Carolina Clay
Roads amble for miles
Over wonders and wilds
But you are my home
burning bushes
Watch: it always comes
Right when you expect it least.
The light slants, enchants;
Your spirit, wakening,hums
And rouses the sleeping beast.
Tie a String Around my Finger
They’re slipping away; my memories of...
The roads:
Home
From home
The feel:
Hand
In palm
The naming:
This child belongs
To me.
But anchored,
Unmoving,
The sound
Of her laugh.
Encore
The first swallows
Of the season
Looped the pines
Rocketed upward
Dare-deviled madly
In a carnival sky
Shot from a cannon
To the roar of applause
Contrails mapped
On flapping clouds
She traced her finger
Along their path
The way she had traced
The lines of veins
On her mother’s hand
As they waited for death
No applause
Just softly hummed
Lullabies that one
Once sang
To the other
In a petal pink room
With blanket and bed
A flapping curtain
In softer spring breeze
Now offered back
gently
From one to the other
To soothe once more
The fear of the night
The closing of curtains
And the end of the show
Good Dog
Blankets thrown off
Lay her here
Between us in bed
Fur stroked
Bodies wrapped
Around waning warmth
May it be so for me
She whisperers
One day
Flanked by those
Who treasure most
My easy being
A midnight vigil
Eyes peeking
At staggered breath
Pup between
mistress and man
Finally, sleep
A silly thing,
Sighed the man
To love so deep
A kiss on the paws
The merciful sorrow
Of a life that mattered
Use-less
I’m learning to love the ground that lies
Beneath my feet in the fallow season
The ground of the dormant, of sleeping life
That carries no promise of certain production
The ground of the nourished, fed by the death
Of the things that once bloomed
The ground of the passive, that simply receives
The rains of the fall and the rest of winter
The ground that cannot be measured
By the brightness of green breaking the rows
Or the richness of fruits that fall from the vines
Or the service it pays to some greater end
But holds its value in the simple act
Of embracing its wild and wonderful being.
It Is Well
When peace like a river attendeth my way
In hospice beds with potent meds
And the babbling sound of the IV drip
When sorrow like sea billows roll
In teeth ground to shards that chink
On the shores of words that cannot be said
Whatever my lot
Even decades of loss as the memories
Ride on the tides, gone away
Thou hast taught me to say
With a fire in the soul that blazed out of control
Even when breakers thundered and rolled
It is well with my soul.
Coda:
Bob Dylan:
I was young when I left home,
And I been out a'ramblin' 'round,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
To my home, Lord, to my home,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
It was just the other day
I was drinkin' on my pay
When I met an old friend I used to know.
He said your mother's dead and gone,
Your baby sister's all gone wrong,
And your daddy needs you home right away.
Not a shirt on my back,
Not a penny on my name.
Well I can't go home this a'way.
This a'way, Lord Lord Lord,
I can't go home this a'way.
If you miss the train I'm on,
Count the days I'm gone,
And you'll hear that whistle blow a hundred miles.
A hundred miles, a hundred, baby,
Lord Lord Lord,
And you'll hear that whistle blow a hundred miles.
When I's playin' on the track,
Maw would come and whip me back,
On them tressles down by ol' Jim McKay's.
When I pay the debt I owe
To the commissary store,
I will pawn my watch and chain and go home.
Oh home, Lord Lord Lord,
I will pawn my watch and chain and go home.
I used to tell my Maw sometimes,
When I see them ridin' blinds,
Gonna make me a home out in the wind.
In the wind, Lord, in the wind,
Make me a home out in the wind.
I don't like it in the wind,
I want to go back home again,
But I can't go home this a'way.
This a'way, Lord Lord Lord,
And I can't go home this a'way.
I was young when I left home,
And I been all a' ramblin' 'round,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
To my home, Lord Lord Lord,
And I never wrote a letter to my home.
July 28, 2020
Lovely book of poetry. Lots of poems that process the death of her grandmother. One poem, called "But Even If You Don't," is one of the best I've ever read. Read through this slowly to savor everything (which is pretty much the only way to read poetry). Didn't disappoint.
January 13, 2020
This is a melancholy yet faith-filled treatise on the death of a loved one. It's a beautiful first book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews