Something About Living
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry
Winner of the 2022 Akron Poetry Prize
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
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The brilliant third collection from Tuffaha (Kaan and Her Sisters), who is of Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian descent, evokes the weight of a homeland's genocide, but is equally about the joys of heritage and the righteous pursuit of justice for one's oppressed brothers and sisters. She eloquently captures the dichotomy of pain and comfort: "Be it a home;/ ancient breath and second/ letter of ancestry. Home of unripe figs// or of suffering?" In "Triptych," Tuffaha alternates language from the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights with phrasing from an Israeli tourism ad ("No one belongs here more than you do"), highlighting the inherent disconnect between this welcoming attitude and the violent displacement of Palestinians from the region. She further castigates American politicians and activists who feign sympathy for the plight of the colonized while doing nothing to stop their violent oppression: "I thought of the word/ I have come to hate most in English/ which is peace/ because it is always pointed at my skull." Tuffaha is defiant in the face of devastation, declaring in "Threads": "Let us plan// to decolonize our spaces... Let us plan, brothers and sisters,/ a museum heist or a freedom march... You cannot swallow a life/ this large." This superb volume sings of those determined to fight for a fairer future.
