INK KNOWS NO BORDERS for Poetry Friday

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Kat at Kathryn Apel for Roundup. 
I've been reading Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience selected by Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond. 
In this collections of 64 poems for the YA audience, we read poems that move from leaving a homeland to finding/creating home in a new land  -- with all sorts of LIFE in between, including moments of culture loss illuminated like in “Tater Tot Hot-Dish” by Hieu Minh Nguyen; about not fitting into either one's original culture or the new one, as in “Adrift” by Alice Tao; and challenges in a new country where one feels like “other” like in “Talks About Race” by Mahtem Shiferraw:
“I don't know what to say to these people who notice the shape of the eye before its depththe sound of the tongue before its wisdomthe openness of a palm before its reach.”
A poem entitled “The Border: A Double Sonnet” by Alberto Rios begins “The border is a line that birds cannot see.”
The poem from early in the book,“Immigrant” by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, begins:
“I am not buckled safely into my seatI am watching the road unravelbehind us like a ribbon of dust."
The book ends with the powerful poem “self-portrait with no flag” by Safia Elhillo, which includes these lines:
“i pledge allegiance to thegroup text I pledge allegianceto laughter & to all the boysI have a crush on I pledge”
You can read the poem in its entirety here. Meet Safia herself in this video "An Evening with Safia Elhillo." (psa: video contains profanity and may not be suitable for some students.)

What do YOU pledge allegiance to? This could be a powerful "identity poem" prompt for students of all ages and backgrounds! And the book is not to be missed. I hope you will check it out!