Ellis Island and Other Immigration Entry Points in Verse

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 Step into your ancestor's shoes and feel arrival anew.

First Ellis Island Immigrant Station, built in 1892 and destroyed 1897.
Unidentified photographer, personal image of old stereo photograph, Public Domain

Ellis Island and other ports of entry were gateways to a new life, often blurred by hope and uncertainty. Poetry can help us to imagine what it felt like to step onto new soil, meet strangers, and navigate unfamiliar systems. Oftentimes, immigrants already had family located in the U.S., so settling wasn't as unsettling for some later arrivals.

📚 Poems and Books Inspired by Entry Points

NOTE: Books are affiliate links with BooksAMillion. You don't pay any more for the book, but I receive a commission for sending you to their site. Much appreciated!

  • Ellis Island and Other Stories by Mark Heprin: Although prose, this book is a winner and can inspire your poetry. Winner of the Prix de Rome and the National Jewish Book Award, these ten stories and the title novella, "Ellis Island," exhibit tremendous range and versatility of style and technique.

  • State Lines: "Campesino", a poem by Gary Soto

  • Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is a funny, fast-paced, and heartrending story about three siblings living on their own as undocumented new immigrants. This is a wordless graphic novel that can inspire your poetry.

🖋️Poetry Form Spotlight: Tanka Sequence

This is fun! A tanka is a short poem, like a haiku or cinquain. It is a five-line poem with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable sequence. You can write several tankas and string them together to make a longer poem. One possible sequence could follow stages of arrival, boarding, traveling, landing, waiting, and settling.

✅ Checklist

☐ Choose an ancestor’s port of entry
☐ Capture sights, sounds, and emotions of arrival
☐ Consider a sequence of moments
☐ Maintain the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern
☐ Reflect on hope, fear, and resilience

✍️Mini-Prompt

Write a tanka sequence imagining your ancestor stepping off a (or a train, or even a plane to make it more modern) and into their new world. Include at least three tankas. You can also locate points of entry with this government map.

You can also use this article at FamilySearch: Find the U.S. Immigration Ports Your Ancestors Used

💬 Call to action

Before you write or read your poetry to others, see if you can discover a real ancestor who migrated to the States. Tap me if you need help with that research, and we can work together to send you in the right direction. Write your tanka sequence and read it aloud to family members, inviting them to share their own imagined or real experiences.

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