#lena tuffaha

[havingapoemwithyou]

A series of poems from Palestine, curated by the poet and translators Fady Joudah and Lena Tuffaha.

#Fady Joudah #Lena Tuffaha #poetry #Palestine #🇵🇸

[firstfullmoon]

Zakaria Mohammed, “Untitled Poem, IV,” trans. Lena Tuffaha

#it is not poetry’s job to wipe away tears poetry should dig a trench where they can overflow and drown the universe!!!!!!!! #w #poetry #zakaria mohammed #lena tuffaha #all beautiful poetry is an act of resistance #from the river to the sea

[translations2]

두 개의 시, 자카리아 모하메드

Two Poems

By Zakaria Mohammed

Translated by Lena Tuffaha

I.

I caught a glimpse of you as I ran. I had no time to stop and kiss your hand. The world was chasing me down like I was a thief and it was impossible for me to stop. If I had stopped I’d have been killed. But I caught a glimpse of you: your hand a stem of narcissus in a glass of water, your mouth unbuttoned, and your hair a soaring bird of prey. I caught a glimpse of you but I had no matches with me to light a bonfire and dance around it. The world was failing me, abandoning me, so I didn’t even wave at you.

One day the world will settle down, the crazed cable channels will stop broadcasting, and those that hound me will disperse so I can return to that road, the one where I caught a glimpse of you. I’ll find you in that same chair: your hand a stem of narcissus, your smile a bird of prey, and your heart an apricot blossom. And there, with you, beneath the shade of your apricot, I’ll tear down the tent of my orphanhood and build my home.

                                     —from Kushtban

II.

Night is a generous friend.  All things loosen their vines over my head. My beloveds are seated around me as if we were at a celebration. My beloveds who have passed. My beloveds who are here, and beloveds yet to come. And death is a watchdog chained at the gate. Only the Khamaseen wind beats angrily at the door. Khamaseen is a loathsome neighbor; I raise a wall between us, turn out the lights between us.

I am happy, singing like a rod of ephedra, crying out like a raptor.

Do not believe my words. Don’t reach out to the vines in the darkness. Night is a pact of horrors. Ten birds sleep in the tree, but one anxiously circles over the house. And as you know, one bird suffices to destroy an entire celebration, one match to burn down a civilization.

The meal was cold. I rinsed my mouth out afterwards with Khamaseen, and washed my hands with lichen.

If there was any use in weeping I would have wept before you all. But weeping requires more energy than we possess, so I will sing for you like tender Saba wind, I’ll sing in the vernacular of a young basil stem: night is a stone of amber. Night is a pact of marvels.

                                    —from Alanda (Ephedra)

_

두 개의 시

- 자카리아 모하메드

- 레나 투파하 아랍어에서 영어로 옮김

I.

달리며 당신을 얼핏 보았습니다. 멈춰 서서 당신 손에 입을 맞출 시간이 없었어요. 세상이 마치 내가 도둑이라는 듯이 나를 뒤쫓고 있었고 나는 도저히 멈출 수가 없었습니다. 멈췄더라면 나는 죽임을 당했을거예요. 하지만 얼핏 당신을 봤습니다: 당신의 손은 물잔에 담긴 한 줄기 수선화, 조금 벌린 당신의 입, 당신 ���리카락은 솟아오르는 맹금. 얼핏 당신을 보았지만 내게는 춤을 추며 돌 모닥불을 피울 성냥이 없었습니다. 세상이 나를 실망시키고 있었고, 나를 버리고 있어서, 당신에게 손도 흔들지 않았습니다.

어느날 세상이 진정될 것입니다, 날뛰는 케이블 채널들은 방송을 그만둘 것이고, 나를 못 살게 구는 이들이 흩어져 나는 그 길로 돌아갈 수 있을 것입니다, 당신을 얼핏 본 그 길로. 당신은 같은 의자에 앉아있을 것입니다: 당신 손은 한 줄기 수선화, 당신 미소는 맹금, 당신의 심장은 살구꽃. 그리고 거기서, 당신이랑, 당신 복숭아꽃의 그림자 아래에서, 내 고아시절의 텐트를 허물고 나의 집을 지을 것이에요.

                                     — 큐슈트반에서

II.

밤은 관대한 친구입니다. 온갖 것들이 나의 머리 위로 덩굴을 풀어둡니다. 사랑하는 이들이 무언가 기념하듯 나를 둘러싸고 앉아있습니다. 내가 사랑하는 돌아간 이들. 내가 사랑하는 여기 있는 이들과 내가 사랑하는 아직 오지 않은 이들. 그리고 죽음은 문에 묶인 감시견. *카마신 바람만이 성을 내며 문을 칩니다. 카마신은 혐오스러운 이웃; 우리 사이에 벽을 세워, 우리 사이 켜진 불을 끕니다.

마황 줄기처럼 노래하며, 맹금처럼 비명을 지르며, 나는 행복합니다.

나의 말을 믿지 마십시오. 어둠 속에서 덩굴에 다가가지 마십시오. 밤은 공포스러운 것들 사이의 약속입니다. 열 마리의 새가 나무에서 잠을 자지만, 한 마리는 불안해하며 지붕 위를 돕니다. 그리고 당신이 아시다시피, 기념식 하나를 망치는 데 새 한 마리면 충분하고, 문명 하나를 태워버리는 데 성냥 하나면 충분하지요.

식사는 차가웠어요. 식사를 하고 카마신으로 입을 헹구고 이끼로 손을 씻었습니다.

우는 것이 소용이 있었다면 누구보다도 먼저 내가 울었을 것입니다. 하지만 우는 것은 우리가 가진 것보다도 많은 힘을 요하니, 나는 상냥한 사바 바람처럼 당신을 위해 노래할게요. 어린 바질 줄기의 방언으로 노래할게요: 밤은 호박. 밤은 경이로운 것들의 약속.

                                    —알란다 (엘페드라) 에서

_

*카마신 (또는 캄신): 캄신은 이집트와 이스라엘에 영향을 주는 건조하고 덥고 모래가 많은 국지풍이다. 봄부터 여름까지 지중해를 저기압이 동진하는데, 여기에 이끌려서 사막에서 불어나오는 모래풍인 열풍 (출처: 위키피디아)

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free palestine #ceasefire now #end genocide #end israeli occupation #zakaria mohammed #lena tuffaha

[cry-power]

I caught a glimpse of you as I ran. I had no time to stop and kiss your hand. The world was chasing me down like I was a thief and it was impossible for me to stop. If I had stopped I’d have been killed. But I caught a glimpse of you: your hand a stem of narcissus in a glass of water, your mouth unbuttoned, and your hair a soaring bird of prey. I caught a glimpse of you but I had no matches with me to light a bonfire and dance around it. The world was failing me, abandoning me, so I didn’t even wave at you. One day the world will settle down, the crazed cable channels will stop broadcasting, and those that hound me will disperse so I can return to that road, the one where I caught a glimpse of you. I’ll find you in that same chair: your hand a stem of narcissus, your smile a bird of prey, and your heart an apricot blossom. And there, with you, beneath the shade of your apricot, I’ll tear down the tent of my orphanhood and build my home.                                      —from Kushtban Zakaria Mohammed, translated by Lena Tuffaha

#zakaria mohammed #poetry #poem #palestine #lena tuffaha #kushtban #poems from palestine

[luthienne]

#lena khalaf tuffaha #running orders #words #poetry #typography #palestinian literature

[rueyam]

lena khalaf tuffaha, ‚running orders‘

#i know this writing for more than 2 years & it never left my mind #lena khalaf tuffaha #palestine #gaza #poetry #musings

[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"

#lena khalaf tuffaha #water & salt #poem #excerpt #grandmother #quotes #poetry #tu'burni #beautiful words

[geryone]

Something about Living, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

#quotes #poetry #quote #poem #Lena Khalaf Tuffaha #id in alt text

[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

#palestine #lena khalaf tuffaha

[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.

#poetry #lena khalaf tuffaha #linger

[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.

#Lena Khalaf Tuffaha #contemporary poetry #palestine #Gaza #forced removals of people from their land

[havingapoemwithyou]

running orders by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

#Lena Khalaf Tuffaha #poetry #poem #🇵🇸 #Palestine

[translations2]

무제시 3과 4, 자카리아 모하메드

Untitled Poems III & IV

- Zakaria Mohammed

- Translated by Lena Tuffaha

III.

People are asses. I hang bells from their necks so they can sing to me while I recline on a rock.

People are fools. I’ll hang them up in the wardrobe like winter clothes.

May’s barley is about to ripen. Each stalk has lined up its seeds in orderly fashion so they can stand at the gate of heaven.

I can line up words without meaning.

I can create meaning from nothingness.

I tie a horse near the barley and meaning overflows.

Meaning is orderliness.

Meaning is coincidence.

Meaning is a beast of burden hauling watermelons.

If only I could line things up like a stalk of barley does.

Barley takes its own life in May, and wheat opens its mute mouth in June.

My time is the end of August.

At the end of August, my trigger snaps.

Oh, if only I could live in a glass of water; my roots white, my hair green, and the sun my only god.

I have one song I keep repeating. I have one great lie I’ve attached to the ceiling with tape, so that the flies of truth will stick to it.

My head is huge like a balloon. My hand is a destitute star, the knife is a painful simplicity I do not possess, and when I arrive at meaning, it is lost to me.

                                     —from Alanda

IV.

He was crying, so I took his hand to steady him and to wipe away his tears.

I told him as sorrow choked me: I promise you that justice

will prevail in the end, and that peace will come soon.

I was lying to him, of course. I know that justice won’t prevail

and peace won’t come soon, but I had to stop his tears.

I had this false notion that says, if we can, by some sleight of hand, stop

the river of tears, everything would proceed in a reasonable manner.

Then, things would be accepted as they are. Cruelty and justice would graze

together in the field, god would be satan’s brother, and the victim would be

his killer’s beloved.

But there is no way to stop the tears. They constantly pour out like a flood

and ruin the lying ceremony of peace.

And for this, for tears’ bitter obstinance, let the eye be consecrated as the truest saint

on the face of the earth.

It is not poetry’s job to wipe away tears.

Poetry should dig a trench where they can overflow and drown the universe.

                                     —from A Date for the Crow

_

무제시 3과 4

- 자카리아 모하메드

- 레나 투파하 아랍어에서 영어로 옮김

III.

사람들은 멍청하다. 그들 목에 종을 달아 내가 바위에 기대어 쉬는 동안 나를 위한 노래를 부르도록 한다.

사람들은 바보다. 그들을 겨울옷 걸듯 옷장에 걸 것이다.

오월의 보리가 다 익어간다. 보리는 천국의 문 앞에 서기 위해 보릿대마다 씨앗을 가지런히 세워두었다.

나는 의미 없는 말들을 가지런히 세울 수 있다.

나는 무로부터 의미를 창조할 수 있다.

말을 보리 옆에 묶으면 의미가 흘러넘친다.

의미는 정연함.

의미는 우연.

의미는 수��을 나르는 수레를 끄는 짐승.

보릿대처럼 가지런히 할 수만 있었으면.

보리는 오월이면 스스로 목숨을 끊고, 밀은 유월에 침묵하던 입을 연다.

나의 시절은 팔월말.

팔월말이 되면 나의 도화선이 끊어진다.

오, 물잔 속에 살 수만 있다면; 하얀 뿌리와 초록 머리를 갖고, 태양만을 나의 신으로 섬기며.

부르고 또 부르는 노래가 있다. 진실의 파리들이 붙도록 천장에 걸어놓은 대단한 거짓말이 있다.

나의 머리는 풍선처럼 거대하다. 나의 손은 궁핍한 별, 칼은 내가 갖지 못한 고통스러운 소박함, 그리고 의미에 도달할 때, 나는 의미를 잃는다.

                                     — <알란다> 중

IV.

그가 울고 있어, 나는 그의 손을 들어 그를 진정시키고 그의 눈물을 닦아 내었다.

슬픔이 나의 목을 조르는데 말했다: 약속할게

마침내 정의가 이길 것이고, 곧 평화가 올거야.

물론, 나는 거짓말을 하고 있었다. 정의가 이기지 못할 것이라는 것도

곧 평화가 오지 않는다는 것도 알지만, 그의 눈물을 멈춰야했다.

나는 잘못 생각하고 있었던 것이다, 만약 우리가 교묘한 손짓으로, 강물 같은 눈물을

멈출 수 있다면, 모든 일이 합리적으로 흘러갈 것이라고.

그럼 모든 것이 있는 그대로 받아들여질 것이라고. 잔인함과 정의가 밭에서

함께 풀을 뜯을 것이고, 신은 사탄의 형제가 될 것이고, 피해자는

자기 살인자의 연인일 것이라고.

허나 눈물을 멈출 방법이 없다. 홍수처럼 흐르고 또 흘러

거짓말 뿐인 평화의식을 망친다.

그것을 보아, 눈물의 이 쓰디쓴 고집을보아, 눈을 지구상 가장 진실된

성자로 축성하라.

눈물을 닦아내는 건 시가 할 일이 아니다.

시가 해야할 일은 눈물이 흘러넘쳐 온 우주를 잠기게 할 도랑을 파내는 일이다.

                                     — <까마귀를 위한 야자열매> 중

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free palestine #ceasefire now #end genocide #end israeli occupation #zakaria mohammed #lena 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)

#poetry #palestine #palestinian poetry #naomi shihab nye #remi kamazi #mohammed sawaie #hala alyan #mohammed el kurd #mosab abu toha #lena khalaf tuffaha #lulu speaks #lulu reads #books

[luthienne]

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

#lena khalaf tuffaha #water & salt #again and again #words #poetry #typography #palestinian literature #palestine #free palestine #nakba

[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

#lena khalaf tuffaha #poetry #free palestine #palestinian poets series