Border Lines: Poems of Migration
Edited by: Mihaela Moscaliuc and Michael Waters
Over the course of a poetry book, you can glean the personality of a poet, see their soul spill out through their words. Reading a collection where no poet has more than one poem, you see instead the editor’s intent behind compiling. In Border Lines: Poems of Migration Mihaela Moscaliuc and Michael Waters divide poems gathered across decades into Crossings, Promised Land, Motherland, Labor, Language, and Community. These sections create the story, not of any one group or person, but of the sense all migrants can see themselves in. Maybe not every poem, maybe not every section, but keep an open heart and there will be words that strike a chord no matter your background. At least once the theory that we’re all migrants in one way, no matter where we come from, we are in a place that belongs to the land, we are only borrowing.
There were over a hundred poets in this book and no restricting form they had to adhere to. Some would make me stop and hold the power of the words before returning again to drink them in further, others I had to read multiple times before deciding that I’d probably never fully understand what the poet’s intent was.
The first half felt like a journey. Titled Crossings, Promised Land, and Motherland, it’s no wonder they carried a weight. Many of them invoked immigration and a departure of the land they called home, very few held optimism for their present or future. Most felt more like mourning than seeking the brighter future insinuated so often. Motherland marks a turning point, where the poets take a look back at the land they left behind, pulling parts of it forward into their modern lives.
Labor, Language, and Community follow, as if the collection itself has migrated to some new land, forming the newfound personality out of their fragmented lives. Labor holds space for the injustice of migrants taken advantage of, whether blatantly or in more subtle ways. Language is often reminiscent of the earlier sections, mourning the lost language that comes with assimilation. At the same time it challenges the notion that everything must be erased, that becoming a part of a new culture requires forgetting everything you held important prior. It flows nicely into Community which examines the multi-racial-generational-personal identity that has been brewing up to that point. Reflections of family seeing their current world through an older lens, rituals that bring home to an unfamiliar kitchen, confirmations that no matter what reason they had for leaving, this was their life and reflection could only inform the path forward.
Border Lines acts as a compass and map for finding poets who have lived long lives or are just starting to publish, all capturing similar concepts in universally different ways. You can pick it up to read from occasionally, or devote an entire day, however you approach there will be something that digs deep into your heart, to sprout when it’s ready.