2024 Bimonthly Yearlong Subscription

Spotlight on Palestinian Poetry

Curated by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
& including original art by Hala Saleh

Subscribers to our 2024 Year in Poetry Bimonthly Subscription Service will receive one book every other month, beginning in January, featuring the work of Palestinian poets writing across an array of poetic forms and traditions. In addition, subscribers will be receiving a custom designed Tatreez (traditional Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery) bookmark to accompany our book selections. The bookmark design will incorporate traditional Tatreez motifs and patterns that express something related to the author, the book, or the topic. Tatreez motifs traditionally tell a story, and reflect the artist's connection to historical events, the land, flora and fauna, and phases of life.

Subscribers can sign up at any time throughout the year and will receive all previous selections with their first delivery.

This bimonthly program will feature a mix of collections spanning poetic ages, original languages, and diverse styles. In other words: new books, books from eons ago, books in translation, and books that may challenge your expectations of what poetry is and can be. Ultimately, we’d love for our subscribers to find themselves, at the end of their subscription, with a handful of new favorites and a yearlong experience that pushes their boundaries as readers, igniting or affirming their love for the limitless pleasures found in a good book of poems.

If you would like to give this as a gift, send us an e-mail (store@openpoetrybooks.com) after your purchase and we'll be in touch with more information.

About our curator: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her heritage is Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian and she is fluent in Arabic and English. She is the author of three books of poetry, Water & Salt (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry, Kaan and Her Sisters (Trio House Press, July 2023), and Something About Living, winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry, forthcoming from University of Akron Press, 2024.

About our artist: Hala Saleh is a Tatreez (traditional Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery) artist. Hala practices the art of Tatreez both as a way to connect to her heritage and culture, but also as a way to resist the erasure of Palestinian identity. Hala recently started a local Tatreez circle for Palestinians called Seattle Resistance Tatreez. Hala says, "Practicing this ancestral craft reaffirms our humanity, our ties to our indigenous land of Palestine, and our pride in our heritage." Hala is a software technology executive by day and a Palestinian all day every day.