Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Dukka

Loving in the face of violence, danger, and distress is an act of defiance, as demonstrated in Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s achingly beautiful poem “Dukka”. The Palestinian American writer spotlights seven aspects of love in action — between father and newborn, for example, a journalist and her audience, a pair of intimates dining out. She shows us the “million ways to love” flowing through her community and cascading through generations, centuries, millennia, as inexorable and constant as the ocean and as bright and surprising as a rare meteor shower.

We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is author of three books of poetry: Something About Living (The University of Akron Press, 2024), 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 CLMP Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award; and Water & Salt (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable 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 Press Chapbook Prize, and Letters from the Interior, finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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