Poetry Unbound: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — "Dukka"

Host: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Date: February 23, 2026
Podcast: On Being Studios

Episode Overview

In this episode of Poetry Unbound, host Pádraig Ó Tuama invites listeners to immerse themselves in Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's poem "Dukka." The episode is an in-depth, contemplative journey through the layers of Tuffaha’s work, exploring how love endures, transforms, and is practiced amid difficulty and displacement. Drawing out themes of time, repetition, community, Palestinian identity, and the ordinary and extraordinary forms of love, Ó Tuama links the poem’s imagery to lived realities and collective resilience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: The Layers of Quotation and Content

• [00:02] Ó Tuama recounts a moment at a Dublin book event where someone quips, “‘Hope’s the thing with feathers.’ ‘I don’t know about feathers, but it’s certainly got claws!’”
• He highlights how this interplay shifts from the recitation of poetry to engaging with its deeper meanings:

  “I loved that quip… it introduced some challenge… not just the art of the art, but also looking at what the art is pointing you towards.” (00:27)

2. Reading and First Impressions of "Dukka"

• Ó Tuama reads the poem in its entirety, guiding listeners through its delicate and direct imagery.
• The setting—a restaurant near the ocean, under a meteor shower hidden by city lights—serves as a metaphor for beauty present but sometimes obscured by life’s challenges.
• The unnamed “we” in the poem seem to be Arabic speakers helping a waitress pronounce “dukkha,” implying diaspora and a sense of cultural translation.

3. Love Defined and Repeated

• The poem structures itself by repeatedly asking “what is love,” then responding with everyday examples:

  “Love is paying attention, I remark, and you repeat it to me.”

• Ó Tuama notes the poem’s craft:
  • Repetition operates as a thematic and musical device.
  • Love is rendered not as abstraction, but as practical acts (planting trees, preparing food, protesting).

4. Time, Repetition, and Legacy

• [03:50] The motif of time is central—meteor showers happen “once in a lifetime” but repeat over cosmological eras, paralleling the recurring acts of care and resistance in Palestinian life.
• The discussion of “the father who plants an olive tree for every newborn” illuminates faith in the future, even under uncertainty.
• The poem links generations:

  “Love is the children we carried at the protests, leading their own marches in the rain…” (08:23)

5. Love Under Pressure and Community

• Ó Tuama highlights how the poem illustrates “love under pressure.”
• He cites, “Love is the elderly woman who stood inside Damascus Gate, knowing the settlers were on a rampage, knowing what her body would to endure,” as an example of love as courageous endurance.

6. The Place of Story and Collective Memory

• The poem references “Shireen,” whom Ó Tuama explains is journalist Shireen Abu Akhla, killed while reporting.

  “Shireen… was shot dead by the Israeli military in 2022. She was a journalist… covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp.” (08:50)

• He underscores the significance of naming and storytelling as acts of love and remembrance.

7. Everyday Acts as Forms of Resistance

• "Love lives in many rooms"—the poem’s vignettes move from kitchens to cars where mothers teach language or embroider family textiles, even as larger events unfold outside.
• These everyday acts are paralleled with acts of protest and collective action.

8. Poetic Craft: Structure and Line Breaks

• Ó Tuama emphasizes how the poem’s line breaks create both suspense and space for expansive meaning:

  “At the restaurant, the loudest sound...” The expected continuation could be ominous, but it becomes “the ocean.”

• He explores how this structure lets possible ‘terrible things’ inhabit the spaces between lines, amplifying both hope and anxiety.

9. Hope and the Million Ways to Love

• The poem ends:

  “Let the stars fall. I have no idea what hope is, but our people have taught me a million ways to love.”

• Ó Tuama interprets this as a “declaration of community,” where love—multiplied in countless small and grand gestures—outlasts loss and despair.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Engaging with Poetic Content

  “I loved the engagement with content. Not just recitation, not just the art of the art, but also looking at what the art is pointing you towards.” (00:27)

• On the Structure of the Poem

  “Repetition is an important technology, technique, music, intelligence. In this poem, these two seem like old friends, maybe siblings, people who seem to have known each other for a long time.” (05:06)

• On Time and Legacy

  “There’s an intelligence of time that’s so present the whole way throughout this poem.” (05:43)

• On Love Under Pressure

  “Our people have taught me a million ways to love is a way of elevating this poem, of using the word love as a gathering call, as a focus, as a force as well, of holding together and of making a declaration and establishing community.” (11:27)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:02 — Host’s opening anecdote on poetry lines and challenging interpretations of hope
• 01:38 — Pádraig Ó Tuama reads “Dukka” by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
• 03:50 — Initial breakdown: setting, characters, and poetic devices
• 05:06 — Exploration of repetition, time, and the intimacy of the poem’s “we”
• 08:23 — Discussion of generational love and referencing Shireen Abu Akhla
• 10:15 — Analysis of poetic structure and line breaks
• 11:27 — Reflection on hope, love, and community as enduring forces

Conclusion

In this episode, Pádraig Ó Tuama opens “Dukka” as both elegy and testament—a meditation on how love is built, sustained, and passed on amid persistence and adversity. Through layered analysis, he allows listeners to experience poetry as lived wisdom, rooted in memory, attention, and everyday acts, always returning to love as the ultimate force of continuity.

Further Resources

• "Dukka" by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha appears in Something About Living, University of Akron Press (2024).
• Learn more at poetryunbound.org