Arab In Newsland

by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Arab In Newsland by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is the winner of the Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize and was chosen by contest judge, January Gill O'Neil.

Praise for Arab In Newsland:

Whenever she turns on the 'never good news, ' Lena Khalaf Tuffaha sees her relatives in Syria, Jordan, and Palestine in pain and turmoil. She sees beloved cities blasted to rubble. She knows that 'when darkness arrives the blue glow / of screens will bring you no warmth.' What does allow us refuge is her beating heart, her wide and generous intelligence. These poems take us deep into the inside story of devastation and despair. These poems make us more human. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's brilliant poems are gifts of grace. -- Peggy Shumaker

Genres: Poetry

37 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2017

About the author

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is author of three books of poetry: Something About Living (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry, Kaan & Her Sisters (Trio House Press), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award, Water & Salt (Red Hen), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable mention for the 2018 Arab American 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.

Her writing has been published in journals including Los Angeles Review of Books, Michigan Quarterly Review, the Nation, Poets.org, Protean, and Prairie Schooner and in anthologies including The Long Devotion (Georgia Press), We Call to the Eye and the Night (Persea Press), and Gaza Unsilenced (Just World Books). She was the translator and curator of the 2022 series “Poems from Palestine” at the Baffler magazine. In 2024 she curated a year-long subscription of Palestinian poetry books with Open Books, Seattle’s poetry-only bookstore.

Khalaf Tuffaha spent ten years working with journalists and editors as a volunteer for Seattle's Arab American community organizations. She helped to tell the stories of people living between two homelands, people who speak in translation and navigate the realities of long wars. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington and an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop.

Khalaf Tuffaha was born in Seattle, Washington but she was raised in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. She has lived the experiences of first-generation American, immigrant, and expatriate. Her heritage is Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian and she is fluent in Arabic and English. She has lived in and traveled across the Arab world, and many of her poems are inspired by the experience of crossing cultural, geographic and political borders, borders between languages, between the present and the living past.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is passionate about a Free Palestine, the perfect cup of coffee, poetry, language, and gardening. She lives with her family in Redmond, Washington

Reviews

[Marne Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite poem in this collection is “Future Perfect”: http://therumpus.net/2017/01/the-rump...

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's book is threaded with a deep embodiment in the frailties of day to day survival of those in war torn Syria and Palestinian settlements. Her writing is brilliant in approach, and developed with layers of texture and deep range of emotion.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha sculpts language into the most beautiful, yearning forms. Lovely and haunting work, most highly recommended.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This slim volume of poems by an American of Jordanian, Palestinian and Syrian heritage is honest, powerful and well-crafted. She writes of how the 9/11 attack happening on her birthday took away her right to celebrate her birthday. She writes about the wrinkles in her father’s forehead that look like 111 as he faces airport agents who don’t want to let him into the country he calls home. She writes of flowers growing and children flying kites in a war zone. She contrasts the shallowness of Facebook with the heaviness of terrorist attacks. These poems don’t take long to read, but they stay with you long after you close the book.