#lena khalaf tuffaha

[luthienne]

[rueyam]

lena khalaf tuffaha, ‚running orders‘

[sagewraith]

As a child, the syrup of my grandmother’s lilting sweet nothings seemed otherworldly. Her Syrian phrases stretched wide as an embrace, jasmine petals bathed in her laughter.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, from Water & Salt; "Tu'burni"

[geryone]

Something about Living, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

[ardor-mohr]

“We used to dream about snow. It was like a fairytale. But that was when we had shoes and our feet were warm inside our houses.”

— Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, (Dis)Placed

[apoemaday]

Linger

by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Which country do you love more? The question asked of each one of us young travelers of the diaspora, children with shiny shoes and English textbooks. At this checkpoint no travel documents will do, only testimonials of praise in perfect syllables gutturals and glottal stops recited with conviction to the cheering crowds. On summer pilgrimages we are delivered to the embrace of relatives, the scent of their skin a heavy musk in the heat, indistinguishable from the cumin and clay of the garden where our fingers loosen glimmering shards beneath green shade of geranium leaves. No time for deep breathing or personal space—here the senses are overwhelmed, here the air overflows with the sorrow and story of love fattening on the vine, and the longing, always the longing for what is no longer here nor possible. In this land of a thousand mirrors reflections of everyone we must and could be, mirage of our selves fragments on the horizon. Let us in they beckon Let our stories slip under your fingernails Let our language collect in brushstrokes across your furrowed brow. Stay. Stay longer. More tea? With mint or sage? Consider carefully, every herb a cure for one ailment and companion to another. Here our portraits find their frames, the bells in our laughter find echoes. With enough time and tea between us the bridge of my nose becomes an heirloom from ancestral villages, your curls a heritage of defiance, the shape of our fingers a flag. Stay a while longer there is so much more they will tell you. Linger with us in the infinite hours their invitation echoes. Let the day lift its veils from the sky, let the embers of sunset burn slowly, let night drape its stars over the hills.

[bandiera--rossa]

Running Orders

They call us now,

before they drop the bombs.

The phone rings

and someone who knows my first name

calls and says in perfect Arabic

“This is David.”

And in my stupor

of sonic booms and glass-shattering symphonies

still smashing around in my head

I think, Do I know any Davids in Gaza?

They call us now to say

Run.

You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.

Your house is next.

They think of it as

some kind of war-time courtesy.

It doesn’t matter

that there is nowhere to run to.

It means nothing

that the borders are closed

and your papers are worthless

and mark you only for a life sentence

in this prison by the sea

and the alleyways are narrow

and there are more human lives

packed one against the other more

than any other place on earth

Just run.

We aren’t trying to kill you.

It doesn’t matter that you can’t call us back

to tell us the people we claim to want

aren’t in your house

that there’s no one here

except you and your children

who were cheering for Argentina

sharing the last loaf of bread for this week

counting candles left in case the power goes out.

It doesn’t matter that you have children.

You live in the wrong place

and now is your chance to run to nowhere.

It doesn’t matter that 58 seconds isn’t long enough

to find your wedding album

or your son’s favorite blanket

or your daughter’s almost completed college application

or your shoes

or to gather everyone in the house.

It doesn’t matter what you had planned.

It doesn’t matter who you are.

Prove you’re human.

Prove you stand on two legs.

Run.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Arab-American poet

----

Photos by Mohammed Talatene and Mohammed Saber - Palestinians leaving Nothern part of Gaza - October 2023.

[havingapoemwithyou]

running orders by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

[libraryleopard]

Some books of poetry by Palestinian authors that I've read recently. I'll link to where you can purchase them if you want to support the authors/publishers (once the global strike is over). (Or you can see if your library has them right now.)

The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye (BOA Editions / Bookshop)

Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up From Brooklyn to Palestine by Remi Kamazi (Haymarket Books / Bookshop)

The Adam of Two Edens by Mahmoud Darwish (Syracuse University Press / Bookshop)

The Tent Generations: Palestinian Poems edited by Mohammed Sawaie (Banipal Books / Bookshop)

The Twenty-Ninth Year by Hala Alyan (Little District Books / Bookshop)

Water & Salt by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (Red Hen Press / Bookshop)

Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd (Haymarket Books / Bookshop)

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha (City Lights / Bookshop)

You & Yours by Naomi Shihab Nye (BOA Editions / Bookshop)

[fiercynn]

palestinian poets: lena khalaf tuffaha

lena khalaf tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator and a first-generation american, immigrant, and expatriate of palestinian, jordanian, and syrian heritage. she is the author of two poetry chapbooks and three books of poetry: arab in newsland (two sylvias press, 2017); water & salt (red hen press, 2017), winner of the 2018 washington state book award for poetry; letters from the interior (diode editions, 2019); 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.

tuffaha also co-curated the collection poems from palestine at the baffler alongside fady joudah, and translated many of the pieces.

IF YOU READ JUST ONE POEM BY LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA, MAKE IT THIS ONE

you can read more about how this poem came to be, and also listen to it read aloud by numerous people.

OTHER POEMS ONLINE I LOVE BY LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA

In Case of Emergency at literary hub

Fragment at kuow (also read aloud)

Mountain, Stone at ours poetica (read aloud with subtitles)

Letter to June Jordan in September at the nation

Lullaby at poetry society of america, with reflections on the piece by naomi shihab nye

Dhayaa at sukoon

Beit Anya at poetry daily

Ruin at lunch ticket

Kaan Loves the Insomniac | كان النوم عميقا at diode

Lesson: Nymphaeum at the adroit journal (also read aloud)

Miss Sahar Listens to Fairuz Sing "The Bees' Path" at greensboro review

[luthienne]

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Water & Salt; "Again and Again"

[dk-thrive]

It doesn’t matter what you had planned. It doesn’t matter who you are. Prove you’re human. Prove you stand on two legs. Run.

—Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, from "Running Orders" in Water & Salt (Red Hen Press, 2017) (via Alive on All Channels)

[sagewraith]

What she called home was a fig tree leaning against the wall, fruit sweetening slow in summer heat.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, from Water & Salt; "Circling the Dome of the Sky"

[geryone]

Something about Living, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

[garadinervi]

Aid to Gaza via poetry prints, Expedition Press, Seattle, WA, December 2023

«Expedition Press stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and we are dismayed more each day at our country's role in the current genocide. We feel complicit and we feel despair. Can poetry do something? For the month of December 2023, Expedition Press will donate 50% of sales from prints by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Zeina Hashem Beck, and Mosab Abu Toha to Emergency Aid: Gaza Under Attack, a joint campaign of the Palestinian Feminist Collective x Middle East Children's Alliance.»

Mosab Abu Toha: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights).

Zeina Hashem Beck: O (Penguin), Louder than Hearts (Bauhan), There Was and How Much Was There (Smith|Doorstop), 3arabi Song, To Live in Autumn (The Backwaters Press).

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha: Something About Living (forthcoming Akron Press 2024), Kaan and Her Sisters (Trio House Press), Water & Salt (Red Hen Press), Arab in Newsland (Two Sylvias Press)

[riverbanktalks]

Running Orders, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha