Palestinian-American Poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha on the Practice of Attention [INTERVIEW]

Lena: “Thank you! I went into a little bit of shock. I was there with my husband and my youngest daughter, and they were the most excited and vocal in the audience. They were seated on either side of me, and they both let out a cheer—my daughter’s cheer was right in my ear!

“After that, I couldn’t hear anything else. Then the music started, and this bright light was shining in my face. It felt like a long time—though it was probably less than a minute—of just pure shock.

“As I got up to make my way to the stage, I was completely unprepared. I genuinely didn’t expect to win, so I hadn’t prepared any comments. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to figure out what to say now.’ I was trying to quickly cobble together some thoughts on my way up. It was a surreal moment.”

James: Your book “Something about Living” opens with the lines:

The fence does not hold. 
The wire sheds its barbs, softens to silk thread. 
The snipers run out of bullets. 

Later, in the opening poem of “Triptych”, you employ what I’ll call ‘reverse’ erasure of United Nations resolutions, by inserting the found phrase from an Israel tourism slogan “No one belongs here more than you do.” 

In these two examples, and so many more, you capture the struggle and dreams of the Palestinian people with both direct and subtle references that never lose the poetry. 

How did you approach what stories and images to share and the emotions you wanted to communicate?

Lena: “For me, the practice of poetry has always been a practice of attention. First and foremost, I collect moments in my mind and phrases that I notice have an impact on my body when I hear them.

“For example, when I read that phrase—‘No one belongs here more than you do’—a very long time ago, in 1998, in a luxury travel magazine, I felt my whole body react. It was in this glossy, multi-page advertisement, and I noticed how violently, how targeted and cruel it felt. Back then, I didn’t necessarily know what to do with that feeling or what to say about it.

“But over time, I’ve learned that moments like that—when something lands deeply in me, whether in joy or in pain—are demanding my attention. I hold onto those things, ruminate over them, and turn them around and around in the light. Usually, that’s my standard for whether something becomes a poem or makes it into a poem. It has to feel alive for me to explore, and it has to have multiple layers.

“I think that’s the first thing I do. And I think so much of what draws me to poetry—any poetry, whether by other writers living or past—is how it insists on complexity, on how deeply intertwined we are. Naturally, those are the kinds of moments that attract me, appeal to me, and drive me to the page.”

James: Form plays an important role in this book, from “Madwoman Ghazal” to the interleaving poem and found text that combine to create “Dialogic.” How do you approach the form a poem will take during the writing and revision process, which is so fun for poets? 

Lena: “It is fun! It’s a healthy kind of intimidating. I think form is a way to elevate your work. And this is to say—I think in poetry, all things can be form. Simply letting a poem spill onto the page is a choice of form as well.

“Form can be a really helpful tool when something feels large, unwieldy, or difficult. It can be a way to manage emotions and ideas. Over time, I’ve learned to become more playful and try different things. A lot of times I start in a form because it feels appealing or like a good fit. Other times, I’ll begin with an idea, a phrase, or an image that’s striking to me but isn’t working, so I’ll shift into a form to see if it opens the material up and makes it more suitable for a poem.

“I’m also very attentive to the music of language, which is deeply appealing to me. I have no musical talent—I wish I did—so the closest I can get is form in poetry. I try to create space for the sound of language, which I think is very important.”

James: Have you come up with a way of approaching how a poem looks on the page? Do you find that changing the way something is visualized totally changes how you want to write the words?

Lena: “I don’t know if I have one set approach, necessarily. I think it’s really dictated by the subject of the poem. The best writing happens when it just sort of unfolds naturally. Usually, I think of the work as being more intelligent than the writer, and I see myself as being in service to it. Sometimes I’ll stop and think, ‘Okay, I didn’t know I was going to do that.’ Those rare moments feel like magic, like something in the sky has opened up and waved at me.

“But that’s not always the case. Revision, for me, takes two, three, or four times as long as writing—and that’s a good thing. It should. Some pieces take longer to revise than others, but revision is where you really learn about the nuts and bolts of the poem and what it wants.

“I don’t come in with an agenda about form. I don’t start saying, ‘I’m going to write a [specific form].’ Usually, I’m following a thread, listening, and seeing what fits.”

James: I find that form emerges from the raw material. I usually have no idea what form it will take. I don’t go in thinking, ‘I feel like writing a sonnet.’ Instead, I find something and see if I can push it into that mold. Although when I talked to A.E. Stallings years ago, she said she does the opposite. She decides on the form first, which takes one decision off the table, and then fills the mold. It’s the total opposite of basically everyone else I’ve interviewed on this podcast.

Lena: “A.E. is such a fascinating poet. I’m a big fan of her work. You’re right—she has a very different approach.

“The only time I’ve done something close to that was in my previous book, Kaan and Her Sisters. I wrote a series of poems about an Arabic singer and rewrote these songs using the pantoum form. I very intentionally chose that form and went in knowing I was going to use it. That was a very unique writing experience for me, but it’s the only time I’ve ever done that.”

James: “Apricots” is one of my favorite poems from the book, and an example of how poets see poems emerge as they travel through the world, and then are lost in research to craft a poem. You write: 

In Rome last summer I learned
that there are seven varieties of apricots, 
that they are distinguished not only

by their physical appearance—the freckles on their skin
or the percentage of it that reddens on the vine—
but also by the month in which they ripen.

Damascus, my grandmother's city, is known
for the apricots of its Ghouta valley, 
each name ending in a lingering ee.

How do you approach incorporating research into your poetry? 

Lena: “I’m so glad you liked that poem. That one’s very dear to me. Research is, in many ways, my love language. Like I said, I believe the craft of poetry is a craft of attention. When I notice something, I’m naturally inquisitive—I want to learn more.

“When something strikes me, I always want to know the etymology of a word, its history, its usages. I’m obsessed with language. I want to understand the layers of how other people might speak about it, especially in different languages. Language is often my entry point, and that makes research feel natural to me.

“I think it’s also because I grew up bilingual. I often hear things in multiple registers—that’s just how my mind works. That tendency makes me inclined to research, because I’m always thinking, comparing, weighing, and finding commonalities or differences. It’s something I enjoy and relish.

“I think poems that stay with you are often the ones that have joyful moments of discovery, like learning about the multiple names or varieties of apricots. Those details can be a way to create bridges. For example, you might not realize the poem is going to touch on grief for a Syrian city—you’re just happily reading along about apricots. But that shared interest or curiosity can open a reader up to a personal experience they might not otherwise connect with.

“I’ve learned that research can create those bridges. It’s a way to invite readers in, but it’s also just how my brain works.”

James: The prose poem “Maqluba” powerfully conveys the performative indifference of a congressman wholly focused on an almond shard stuck between his teeth while giving boilerplate remarks to a room of refugees. The poem is a single paragraph, and demands to be re-read, effectively setting the scene and distilling an idea. 

You write: 

His words dropped off as he examined it, and for a moment it was just the congressman and the almond in the room.

How did you approach distilling this poem into the final edit, in particular what details you chose to edit out? 

Lena: “Oh, I don’t know if there’s a direct corollary to this in English, but in the Arabic poetry tradition—the tradition I grew up in—we have a form called hijaa, which is essentially the opposite of praise. It’s a way to artfully dress someone down, and it’s a beloved ancient form. I had that in mind while writing this poem. That form is very compressed, so you have to crystallize your observations.

“I spent many years before focusing on poetry working in community organizing, spending a lot of time interacting with all kinds of politicians while advocating on behalf of my community. The language those folks work in is very different from poetry, of course. But in a way, that poem is also a study of language—specifically, the banality and hollowness of that kind of language.

“That naturally lent itself to a shrinking down, to a reduction of words. It did go through many edits, and it may have had more detail at one point, but I felt there was a kind of joyful relief in paring it back. That distillation felt true to what the poem wanted to be.”

James: It’s very effective. You’re right—really effective politicians are intentional, but often their language is designed to either say nothing while sounding meaningful, or to serve as a coded message to a subset of people—not necessarily the audience they’re addressing.

Lena: “Precisely, yes. And I just felt that deserved a poem—to strip it down, denude it a little.”

James: “Tantoura Redux” is a gut punch poem, a moment where subtlety is set aside, and the power is in directness. The poem closes with: 

Have our dead now arrived at the threshold
needed to unsettle the sunbathers
stretched out above our families’ corpses? 
Is the sand hotter beneath their feet? Do we cloud the beachside view? 

I’ve interviewed several poets who have used poetry to capture painful histories, and I believe poetry should be the foundation of teaching history. What role should poets play in capturing the plights of people, past and present?

Lena: “Gosh, that’s such a good question. I guess I can only speak from personal experience. For me, as a Palestinian, in addition to my father’s stories and the stories of my community—because I don’t have access to the homeland I come from, I don’t get to live in it, and I can maybe only visit if I’m granted entry—the way I learn about my homeland is through narrative, through story. In the Arabic tradition, that’s heavily tied to poetry.

“Take Mahmoud Darwish, for example. His poems offer Palestinians a vocabulary of homeland, of the past, and of our experiences in ways that many of us in the diaspora wouldn’t have otherwise. I think that in our history, as in many histories across the globe, many activists, revolutionaries, and people engaged in liberation movements were also poets.

“Understanding the role that poetry has played in so many cultures spotlights how important it is to include it as a tool for understanding human history. That’s the point—it’s human history. It should be human; it should include emotion, art, personal experience, and narrations of those experiences—not just official, sanctioned narratives. That’s where, so often, we go wrong.”

James: I just finished two terms as Poet Laureate of Dublin, California, a mid-sized city on the West Coast. One thing that really struck me during that time was how I’d be asked by the city to provide a poem for a civic event, and how poetry, even just 90 seconds of it, can convey so much. It can be tucked in just about anywhere.

I think that’s part of why it’s such a powerful tool for conveying histories and the plights of people—you’re only asking for maybe 90 seconds. If you’re a novelist—and I’ve had novelists read excerpts at open mics—it’s really challenging. They need to start with so much context, and even then, reading an excerpt often feels unsatisfying. But a poet can get up, take 90 seconds or three minutes, and that’s more than enough time to say something profound.

Lena: “I agree with you on that. I’d like to add that the history of both art forms is informative. Novels are a Western form, really a product of the late 19th century. They’re a great form, but they were invented after the locomotive, essentially—when people had the time and resources to sit and engage in the solitary endeavor of reading quietly to themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s informative.

“Poetry, on the other hand, is an ancient art that exists across, as far as we know, most human cultures, if not all. It was often carried in memory and on the breath. Poetry is still made in the body and declaimed aloud, and that’s very powerful.

“Receiving someone else’s words with your faculties, with your senses—whether it’s a poem, a song, or a chant—is a very different experience. It’s a communal experience in many ways.”

James: I reread “Other Words for Blue” several times, and in different ways, including reading just the last lines of each stanza that capture love in so many beautiful ways, here are a few:

When I met you I danced at the edge of a room

and 

When I met you sand lingered in the hem of my dress

and

When I met you I breathed the last of the incense

This poem is an intricate construction, in some ways a poem made from multiple chords that harmonize. Talk about how this poem was crafted. 

Lena: “Well, this one didn’t completely fall out as-is. I spent a lot of time making it just so, but the bulk of it—the sort of three chords of it—came together early on.

“For me, I think of it as a poem about the mystery of love and the ways in which, oftentimes, we feel something or find ourselves in something before we can fully comprehend it with our thinking mind. That fascinated me, and I was trying to find a way to write into that feeling without it coming across as cheesy, for lack of a better word. The color blue became a kind of muse for this poem in many ways.

“I think those three strands happening simultaneously helped me maintain that sense of mystery. Everything doesn’t have to be completely clear or fully resolved. Instead, you can experience a range of emotions and a kind of transformation that the speaker of the poem is going through and reflecting on—with just enough access.

“When I was writing it, I was thinking about the quality of recalling a dream. Sometimes, when you’re trying to remember a dream, you can see it a little bit out of your peripheral vision, but you can’t quite see it fully in front of you. I hope the poem carries that quality as well.” 

James: The poem “Notes from the Civil Discourse Committee” opens with:

It was "the first time"—I took my daughter
to a protest. She was three weeks old and
my ligaments, my language still loose,
the ground beneath me precarious—

This poem uses the crown of sonnets form, a form that hasn’t been discussed on this podcast before, where sonnets are linked by repeating the last and first lines of each stanza. I found this an effective way of exploring themes of home and dislocation. What was your thought process for crafting this poem?

Lena: “It totally evolved. The first formal element of this poem came from its length. It was a long poem, and I was very interested in the ways punctuation can disrupt, clarify, or obfuscate. A lot of the concerns in this book—and in many of the poems in it—are about the idea of obfuscation through language, the ways language can hide things, change things, and alter truths.

“I was thinking about and playing with punctuation, and you can see on the page that it’s used in atypical ways to suggest a kind of inside and outside—this feeling of being in two spaces at once. But then, I started reading about sonnets for a completely different project. The idea of the sonnet as a room, as containment, really stayed with me.

“This poem, though, was too long for just one sonnet. So I thought, ‘Well, I want to experiment with this idea.’ That’s when I started reading about the concept of a crown of sonnets. I loved the opportunity for repetition, because so much of the experience of being erased, changed, or altered—especially in political speech—involves repetition. Propaganda, for example, often repeats a lie until it sticks.

“So the opportunity to introduce repetition into the physical experience of the poem felt thrilling to me. This poem evolved a lot in its form over time. But I kept returning to that idea of containment, of how language—especially when it feels foreign or imposed—can box you in. That was a big part of what I wanted to explore in this poem.”

James: I thought the repetition in this poem was really nuanced. It reminded me of working with a sestina, where six words repeat seven times each. There’s a lot of repetition, and the challenge is to make it feel natural, not glaring. The repetition in this poem had subtle changes, and it didn’t stand out in a way that distracted. It just felt organic. It’s cool to hear how many twists and turns the poem took—such a good reminder for poets that if something isn’t quite working, the raw material might still be right for something else.

Lena: “Exactly! And there are so many iterations. If I look back at my very early notes—I keep a lot of handwritten notes, and I will not show you my office because there are notebooks everywhere! But I found strands of this poem from five, six, seven years ago, and I didn’t know then that they were going to become what they did.

“That’s why sitting with things, letting them change and morph, is so important. I always remind my students of that when I teach. Sometimes, you don’t realize where something is going until long after you’ve started.”

James: What Palestinian poets do you recommend listeners explore?

Lena: “Oh, there are so many, and I always get anxious around this question because so many are dear to me, and I’m terrified I’ll forget someone’s name. So, apologies in advance if I do!

“Poets whose work I return to often and who are doing exciting and interesting things include Deema Shehabi, who is also a California poet. Her book Thirteen Departures from the Moon is one I love, and she also co-wrote a beautiful book with Marilyn Hacker called Diaspo / Renga. It’s a renga—a form where you write back and forth to each other—but it also incorporates the word ‘diaspora,’ and it’s just a magnificent work.

“I also love the work of the poet George Abraham. George’s debut book, I believe, is titled Birthright. They are the co-editor of a forthcoming anthology of Palestinian poetry with the poet Noor Hindi, which will be out with Haymarket in May of this year.

“Like I said, there’s no way to create a complete list—there are so many wonderful Palestinian and Palestinian American poets. This past year, I worked with the poetry bookstore in Seattle, Open Books, to curate a subscription service featuring a poetry book every month by Palestinian poets. Some were American, and others were Palestinian poets from Palestine or elsewhere, including books in translation. It’s a broad range of poets, and I invite people to visit the Open Books website—Open Books: A Poem Emporium—to find more of my recommendations and discover many wonderful poets to read.”

Listen to the full interview on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast.