Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's debut, Water & Salt, 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.
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9781597090292
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Publication Date: 04-27-2017
Pages: 96
Product Dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)
About the Author
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is an American poet of Palestinian, Jordanian and Syrian heritage. Her poems have been published in American and international journals including Blackbird, The Boiler, Borderlands Texas Review, The Indianola Review, James Franco Review, The Lake for Poetry, Lunch Ticket, Mizna, The Ofi Press Mexico, Sukoon, and the Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art. Several of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, “Immigrant” in 2015 and for “Middle Village” and “Ruin” in 2016. She is an MFA candidate at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Redmond, Washington, with her family.
Read an Excerpt
Read an Excerpt
Tu’burni
“Tu’burni” is a common Syrian term of endearment that translates as “bury me” and means “I love you so much I hope I’m the one that dies first.”
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. Tu’burni—bury me! Beloved of my heart my life and my soul.
When I balked at the dark prayer wrapped in love’s silks my mother translated: Let me be the one who goes first, let my heart never live a day without you, children should bury their elders.
In my grandmother’s old Damascus neighborhood, slender-limbed boys and girls scrubbed clean of war’s detritus sleep soundlessly in shrouds against the stone wall of a schoolroom.
The dark prayer, unanswered, burns to white ash. In the homeland of jasmine, childhood drowned in a poison with no fragrance.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
I You Will Need to State the Reason for Your Visit