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ISBN: 9781068751561
79 pages
Date published: 04/12/2025
Paperback
For Fans Of: Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish, June Jordan.
PRAISE:
This superb volume sings of those determined to fight for a fairer future. —Publishers Weekly
Tuffaha’s most recent collection is essential reading. Something about Living should be in every classroom, every library. This is a rallying cry at its most lyrical, most poignant. I can’t say it enough: you need to read this book. —The Poetry Question (Podcast)
In evoking historical episodes of slaughter, expulsion, and attempted erasure, Tuffaha neither isolates nor simply commemorates them. Instead, she exposes their perpetuation in the air and soil of the present day, as the state of Israel sustains and escalates a genocide against the Palestinian people. —Poetry North West
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
Something about Living opens with a single bird and ends in a dazzling meteor shower, and in between lies something of a marvel—an electric and sobering song crackling with possibilities for a homeland fractured and besieged by Empire. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha writes, “Love is paying attention,” and this impressive collection serves as a powerful exemplar of devotion—brilliantly rendered in surprising forms—and profoundly teaches us “a million ways to love.” —National Book Award Judges Citation 2024
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist and translator. She is author of three books of poetry: Something about Living (University of Akron Press, 2024; the87press, 2025), winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry and the 2022 Akron Poetry Prize; Kaan & Her Sisters (Trio House Press), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honourable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award; and Water & Salt (Red Hen), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honourable mention of the 2018 Arab American Book Award. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Arab in Newsland, winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize, and Letters from the Interior (Diode, 2019), finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. For more about her work, visit www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com.
