"Bearing Witness: A Review of Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's 'Kaan and Her Sisters'" by Wiame Rabbaa

Working across many cultures and identities, Arab-American poet, writer, and translator Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is particularly inspired by her Palestinian background and her poems often investigate the juncture of activism, identity, and displacement. In addition to Kaan and Her Sisters, the subject of this review, she is also the author of Arab in Newsland, Water & Salt (a Washington State Book Award winner in 2018), and Something about Living (University of Akron Press, 2024), which won the National Book Award in Poetry just last month (November 2024). Additionally inspired by her grandfather, a well-known poet, playwright, and columnist from Jordan, Khalaf Tuffaha grew up in a poetry-loving, intellectually-curious family. Every poem in Kaan and Her Sisters investigates her very close relationship with language. Expertly combining memory and language, identity and resilience, political and personal themes, Kaan and Her Sisters catches the feeling of existing between languages, histories, and homelands — that of belonging to more than one world. Beyond problems of exile, Khalaf Tuffaha's work creates a place for memory, whereby loss is acknowledged but not erased. This collection is both a literary masterwork and a preservation act since every poem offers a tiny bit of a greater mosaic of identity and survival.
Readers are first introduced to the Arabic verb "Kaan" (“to be”) and its grammatical sisters — which define time and existence — in the title poem, "Kaan and Her Sisters Consider the Past." With language functioning as a metaphor for broken histories, Khalaf Tuffaha explores the link between memory and language. She relates the weight of history to the personal effort of remembering: "Kaan and her sisters were born for lamentation, / for dividing time and denying its work." The images in the poem, markets full of calls and children's graffiti etched on walls, inspire readers to picture settings that are both shockingly fragile and vividly present. Like the rest of the book, this poem questions how we might live with the weight of history while physical markers of home vanish.
One of Tuffaha's most poignant pieces, "Miss Sahar Listens to Fairuz Sing 'Take Me’," previously published in MORIA, employs music as another language of survival. Legendary Lebanese singer, Fairuz, uses her voice as a cultural anchor bearing the weight of memory and desire. Khalaf Tuffaha catches this with lines like "[l]eave me there on the balcony of the sea, my toes pressed into its foaming hem" and "[t]ake me to a house without doors” — which is the refrain — that becomes a plea for sanctuary, a yearning for a space that exists beyond the limits of physical exile. Readers who have gone through displacement — real or emotional — will especially find this poem appealing since it reminds us of the ways in which art links us to the past.
Khalaf Tuffaha's investigation of memory and identity in the natural world is still another recurring motif in Kaan and Her Sisters. First published in MORIA, "Love Song for the Last of the Tall Trees," examines ecological and cultural loss. Writing "[t]he trees whisper secrets to the winds, seeds scattered like dreams on borrowed soil," she contrasts the spread of seeds with the spread of families across borders. Here, the trees reflect the fragility and resiliency of roots, as they transform into quiet but potent historical witnesses. Khalaf Tuffaha sees comfort and a reminder of what has been lost as the natural surroundings mirror the human experience of displacement.
But the most potent metaphor in this book is language. Reflecting on how words might both unite and split, Khalaf Tuffaha explores the conflict between "home" and "country," in "Dear Miss Sahar, Letter Between Translations:" "Home is the only translation I can accept. / She answers that the word / I use transliterates Country." The careful way Khalaf Tuffaha negotiates meaning captures the more general difficulties of belonging.
Kaan and Her Sisters is particularly important since it allows for the personal to cross with the universal. Though it is based on Khalaf Tuffaha's own experiences of displacement and legacy, her work examines more general concerns of identity, resilience, and what it means to live in the face of erasure. Khalaf Tuffaha notes in her ATHENA interview the inseparability of the political and personal in her work and says, "you cannot write about displacement without writing about erasure." This insight permeates the anthology, reminding readers of the need of story — not only as a memorial but also as a weapon for protest.
Every poem in Kaan and Her Sisters is a portal into a world where words and memory cross; hence, they should be read carefully and deliberately. Khalaf Tuffaha's words invite readers to sit with the weight of history and the beauty of tenacity long beyond the last page. Her poems act as both an anchor and a road map, helping her to see a way forward while clinging to what has been lost. This collection shows Khalaf Tuffaha's ongoing potency as a poet as well as the ongoing relevance of narrative as a tool of hope, resistance, and preservation.

Wiame Rabbaa

Wiame Rabbaa is pursuing her Bachelor of Architecture at Woodbury University, where she is a third- and fourth-year student in an accelerated program. She is also enrolled in the Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) program, which allows her to work toward becoming a licensed architect while completing her degree. In addition to her studies, Wiame serves as the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) Chair of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Task Force, advocating for inclusivity within the field of architecture. Before embarking on her architectural journey, Wiame graduated with honors from the American University in Dubai in 2018, earning a Bachelor of Business Administration and Management. Wiame views architecture as a way to create spaces that inspire connection and tell meaningful stories, especially those rooted in cultural narratives. She is passionate about designing projects that reflect the needs of the communities they serve while preserving their unique identities.