Scar Tissue by Eve Rifkah

In Scar Tissue, Eve Rifkah reveals the emotional and physical scars of her Aunt Cora and the secrets of family history.  We see Cora in childhood rejected by her birth mother, the Jew in a Catholic foster home, tolerated and overworked by her foster mother, and in adulthood as she builds a career as a nurse and a personal life as wife and mother.  Written in understated yet sharply etched brushstrokes, Rifkah’s poems deftly balance lyricism and insight, trauma and madness alongside perseverance and defiance.  This is a deeply affecting profile in courage—one not to be missed.

–Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, author of The Education of a Daffodil: Prose Poems

Scar Tissue, the apt title of Eve Rifkah’s latest collection, implies not only injury and healing but also connection.  This unflinching account of a woman’s tragic life begins with young Cora’s poignantly qualified family relationships—“not uncle,” “not sister,” “the man called father,” “foster mother,” “step mother,” “birth mother,” “not mother,” “no mother”—and leads to her disappointing marriage, the losses of her children, and her years spent nursing the sick and dying.  Halfway through the sequence, however, the speaker enters as someone who can bear witness to the bravery of Cora’s love, despite such suffering.  The poems’ startling minimalism—as when young Cora notices how “anger strawberries father’s face”—suggest that each word was carefully chosen to embody deep reservoirs of unspoken experience.  A sense of the hidden and unnamed resonates throughout this moving collection, evoking invisible scars, fault lines, and scattered fragments, “pieces big enough to/ fall through.”  Yet still, in a kind of miracle, the essential moments of Cora’s life are recovered and made whole when they are shared with someone else, as “lost secrets rattle the wires/ shaking between us.”

–Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, author of Hand Me Down

Though Mama Corinne (Cora) had inner turmoil and outer struggles, she become an inspiration and was loved by everyone who knew her. Eve Rifkah has a special place in her heart for Cora and, with her unique and brilliant style of poetry, her love and appreciation for her aunt shines off every page and poem.  With hopes that my mother’s memory will continue to bring hope and inspiration to all.

–Kenneth Kamiel (son)