1. “Things we carry On The Sea” by wang ping
Excerpt: We carry tears in our eyes: good-bye father, good-bye mother We carry soil in small bags: may home never fade in our hearts We carry names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boats We carry scars from proxy wars of greed We carry carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides We carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated in mushroom clouds We carry our islands sinking under the sea
2. “The Unwritten Letter from my Immigrant Parent” by Muna Abdulahi
3. “Citizenship” by Javier Zamora
Excerpt: it was clear they were hungry with their carts empty the clothes inside their empty hands they were hungry because their hands were empty their hands in trashcans the trashcans on the street the asphalt street on the red dirt the dirt taxpayers pay for up to that invisible line visible thick white paint visible booths visible with the fence starting from the booths
4. “Things That Shine in the Night” by Rigoberto González
Excerpt: —from “The Bordercrosser’s Pillowbook” Fulgencio’s silver crown—when he snores the moon, coin of Judas, glaring at the smaller metals we call stars my buckle the tips of my boots the stones in my kidneys
5. “Everyday we get more illegal” by juan Felipe Herrera
6. “We Are Americans Now, We Live in the Tundra” by Marilyn Chin
Excerpt: Today in hazy San Francisco, I face seaward Toward China, a giant begonia— Pink, fragrant, bitten By verdigris and insects. I sing her A blues song; even a Chinese girl gets the blues, Her reticence is black and blue.
7. “Immigrant” by Wyclef Jean
8. “Translation for Mamá” by Richard Blanco
Excerpt: What I’ve written for you, I have always written in English, my language of silent vowel endings never translated into your language of silent h’s. Lo que he escrito para ti, siempre lo he escrito en inglés, en mi lengua llena de vocales mudas nunca traducidas a tu idioma de haches mudas.
9. “Migrant Earth” by Deema K. Shehabi
Excerpt: So tell me what you think of when the sky is ashen? —Mahmoud Darwish I could tell you that listening is made for the ashen sky, and instead of the muezzin’s voice, which lingers like weeping at dawn, I hear my own desire, as I lay my lips against my mother’s cheek.
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A post shared by rupi kaur (@rupikaur_) on Jun 19, 2018 at 8:13pm PDT
11. “A Simple Trajectory” by May Yang
12. “At the Wall, US/Mexico Border, Texas 2020” by Paola Gonzalez and Karla Guitierrez
13. “Why Whales Are Back in New York City” by Rajiv Mohabir
Excerpt: After a century, humpbacks migrate again to Queens. They left due to sewage and white froth banking the shores from polychlorinated- biphenyl-dumping into the Hudson and winnowing menhaden schools.
14. “Before Your Arrival” by Ellen Hagan
Excerpt: the ones who brought your father here, come. Bring with them whole almonds, dried berries & clementines wrapped in cloth. Their clothes & smart shoes too. They come looking for the place I’ve taken your father. Looking for the New York City that could rival home. Your Abba loves the East Village, its graffiti, trash & all the languages on all the streets. On 14th & 1st, we visit the Phillipines. Elvie’s Turo Turo.
15. “Lessons on being an African Immigrant in America” by Mwende “FreeQuency” Katwiwa
What other immigration poems do you recommend?
