America, My New Home: Poems

Far from her Caribbean island birthplace, a young girl carries a dream and journeys to a new land that is at once puzzling, frightening, and inspiring. Here is a place where skyscrapers, rather than the moon, light the night; where people dress in woolens, ready for snow; where no one knows your name. Yet this same place offers exciting treasures: dizzying amusement park rides, stirring symphony concerts, flashy circus performers, towering cathedrals, and captivating art museums that speak to those who linger. Above all, this new land is a place where "hope glows, a beacon / guiding ocean-deep dreamers / from storm surfs to shore." In twenty-three compelling poems, Jamaican-born poet Monica Gunning tells her immigrant's story with gentle humor, grace, and a child's sense of wonder. In doing so, she tells the tale that belongs to many of us, the children of immigrants to America. Ken Condon's bold illustrations illuminate the journey.