Get “How The Water Holds Me”

Both a reckoning and a reclamation, How the Water Holds Me surveys movements through diaspora, dissecting displacement, mortality, responsibility, and masculinity. With deft narrative and rich imagery, Tariq Luthun’s collection of poems makes space for everyone, from Gaza to Detroit, asking us to reassess the notion of belonging, and to do something meaningful with these revelations. How the Water Holds Me invites each of us to explore what it means to seek—and share—refuge.

If you are an educator or community organizer seeking to order multiple copies of the book at once (whether international or in the United States), please fill out the contact form here for discounted bulk pricing.

Early Praise for “How The Water Holds Me”

“Tariq Luthun has done something wondrous in his chapbook How the Water Holds Me, a striking, poignant look at identity, war, ancestry, and dislocation. His writing is dynamic and elegant, with an eye for devastating questions: ‘How ever/will we live long enough to grieve?’ Palestine glints within these pieces like a jewel, the context for explorations of family, of self, of home. ‘Each of us needs a place/to return to,’ he observes, later confessing, ‘And I pray/for everything/that has not tried/to kill me.’ Amen.”
—Hala Alyan, author of The Twenty-Ninth Year

“Tariq Luthun’s How the Water Holds Me stakes a homeland on the boundaries between the domestic and the diasporic; Palestine and Detroit; feast and fast; the erotic and the ecstatic. Take note of the deft attention to music, ‘When piqued, boys be a bone. / Be a tantrum, a cracked tomb…’; of well-wrought lines like, ‘When i meet my mother, / i talk to her like a man / talks to himself….’ These are unsparing poems of the body and the body politic. Lean closer and listen to this American son calling from, calling to, and calling out America. No, this is the yawp we were promised.”
—Tommye Blount, author of Fantasia for the Man in Blue

“Tariq Luthun’s poems are vulnerable confessions and whispered conversations about becoming, and continuing to become, a young man, a Palestinian, an immigrant, a witness, and a fighter.”
—Noura Erakat, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

“What a chilling collection where each poem is a home one longs to return to, a belonging and also an unrequited farewell. This collection is a beautiful ode to the wading that happens in distance, the dear grasp of the hold and the survival of letting go.”
—Aja Monet, author of My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter

Statement from the Author

I firmly believe that the labor artists provide is essential — the work we create helps us to process the world and sustains us. That said, as both an artist and a community organizer, I am acutely aware of art’s limitations. Poetry can feed us, but it is not nourishment; poetry can save us, but it cannot stop a bomb or cauterize a wound. As a result, I have long felt uncomfortable with the way these dichotomies can often go unaddressed, especially in an intensely capitalist mode of society. As someone who — despite being marginalized — possesses some privileges, I am unsettled by the notion of existing in diaspora and potentially profiting off of the blood of my people(s). To be clear, I do not feel that this is an overwhelming trend, and I echo the need for us to support our artists, many of whom rely on their art to survive.

With that said, I am blessed to be in a position where I can translate my poetry into support I, personally, feel is more tangible. As a result, I am beyond grateful to share that all royalties from my book, “How the Water Holds Me” (Bull City Press) will be donated to organizations dedicated to supporting Palestinians, with a focus on those on the ground in Palestine. Thank you for your support of me and my writing, the lessons you continue to offer me, and this work of feeding one another as best we can.

—Tariq Luthun