Monday, November 3, 2014

A Room of My Own: Immigration Haiku

[North] American literature has always been immigrant. -- Salman Rushdie


the Kodak smile
of a new immigrant
first snowflakes

misty Canada Day
three immigrant children
build a sandcastle

1 comment:

  1. Below is a haibun about my immigrant experience, which was first published in Contemporary Haibun Online, 10:2, July 2014:


    Following the Moon to the Maple Land

    Name: Chen-ou Liu (phonic);
    Country of Birth: R.O.C.;
    (Cross out R.O.C. and fill in Taiwan)
    Place of Birth; Date of Birth; Sex;
    simply more technocratic questions
    the Immigration Officer needs to pin down my borders.
    He is always looking for shortcuts,
    more interested in the roadside signposts
    than in the landscape that has made me.
    The line he wants me confined to
    is an analytically recognizable category:
    immigrant. My history is meticulously stamped.
    Now, you're legally a landed immigrant.
    Take a copy of A Newcomer’s Introduction to Canada.

    from Lake Ontario
    I scoop the Taiwan moon
    distant sirens

    ReplyDelete