Tuffaha, Lena Khalaf: HEAL Palestine Book Fundraiser
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*** All book proceeds and donation funds will be sent to HEAL Palestine, a humanitarian organization chosen by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. ***
Something About Living
University of Akron Press, paperback
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
Publisher Marketing: It's nearly impossible to write poetry that holds the human desire for joy and the insistent agitations of protest at the same time, but Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's gorgeous and wide-ranging new collection Something About Living does just that. Her poems interweave Palestine's historic suffering, the challenges of living in this world full of violence and ill will, and the gentle delights we embrace to survive that violence. Khalaf Tuffaha's elegant poems sing the fractured songs of Diaspora while remaining clear-eyed to the cause of the fracturing: the multinational hubris of colonialism and greed. This collection is her witness to our collective unraveling, vowel by vowel, syllable by syllable. "Let the plural be a return of us" the speaker of "On the Thirtieth Friday We Consider Plurals" says and this plurality is our tenuous humanity and the deep need to hang on to kindness in our communities. In these poems Khalaf Tuffaha reminds us that love isn't an idea; it is a radical act. Especially for those who, like this poet, travel through the world vigilantly, but steadfastly remain heart first. --Adrian Matejka, author of Somebody Else Sold the World
Kaan and Her Sisters
Trio House Press
Publication Date: July 1, 2023
Publisher Marketing: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's Kaan and Her Sisters illuminates the work of grief and survival, the sordid legacies of official historical record and the liberatory practice of intimate narration. Tuffaha writes in the liminal space between languages, personifying Arabic verbs who guide the reader through a "history hurtling into the future." Kaan and Her Sisters centers character of the Arabic teacher, Miss Sahar, whose progressive displacements from Palestine and across Arab cities unfold in epistles, refashioned songs, and glimpses into the interiors of her lost home. In these disclosures, a study of time and a record of resistance to erasure emerges, and at its heart, the women who keep intergenerational memory. "Our mothers miraculous, persevering./No maps are new to the ancestors."
Water & Salt
Red Hen Press, 2017
Publisher Marketing: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's debut ... sings in the voices of people ravaged by cycles of war and news coverage. These poems alternately rage, laugh, celebrate, and grieve, singing in the voices of people ravaged by cycles of war and news coverage and inviting the reader to see the human lives lived beyond the headlines