Ellis Island and Other Immigration Entry Points in Verse
Step into your ancestor's shoes and feel arrival anew.
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.
🖋️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.
Tanka: Wikipedia
What is Tanka? The Tanka Society of America
What is a tanka poem? BBC Maestro
✍️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.
For a reading list and a checklist to use before you write your poem, please visit this article at Goin’ Poetic.
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