Universe, Vast Universe
An Anthology of Immigrant Voices in Maine
MWPA is thrilled to release Universe, Vast Universe: An Anthology of Immigrant Voices in Maine edited by Nicole Pomeroy and published by Pink Eraser Press.
“This anthology was born from that belief, and from a sense of urgency that has only grown sharper. We are living through a moment in which immigrant voices are being actively challenged, diminished, and erased—through policy, through rhetoric, through the relentless suggestion that some people’s presence here is provisional, that their belonging must be continually re-earned or can be revoked entirely. Literature cannot fix that, but it can refuse it. It can make it harder to speak of immigrants as abstraction when you have just read someone’s account of their grandmother’s hands, or a child’s first day of school in a language she didn’t yet know, or a father’s love expressed through the careful formality of letters written at a rosewood desk. This anthology is an act of relation as much as resistance. It is an invitation to readers who may not share these experiences to find themselves inside them anyway, because that is what literature does.”
Nicole Pomeroy, Editor
Contributers IncLUDe:
Sabiqa Afghan, Charlotte Agell, Joana Elízabeth Chacón de Entwisle, Kendric Chua, Jinky de Rivera, Dr. Dhiroobhai Chhotubhai Desai, Tanuja Desai Hidier, Mo Drammeh, Aiden Dumitru, Kerem Durdag, Sharif S. Elmusa, Carolina González Valencia, Rayan Hammour, Emma Hartley, Lily Herakova, Leela Marie Hidier, Leonore Hildebrandt, Annaliese Jakimides, Shir Kehila, Jennifer Pitney Maffett, Ashanthi Maxworth, Helene McGlauflin, Leila Christine Nadir, Lucia Owen, Nicole Pomeroy, Lynne Schmidt, Ning Sullivan, Sonja Tomić, Jenna Dela Cruz Vendil, and Omar Yusuf.
Cover image (c) 2026 by Rama Duwaji
praise for the anthology:
"This is an arrestingly powerful anthology that reminds us that the best antidote to authoritarianism is complexity. These essays, poems, stories achieve what all great literature does: it refuses to be put neatly in any single box."
- Zahir Janmohamed, author of The Permitted Hours (forthcoming from Haymarket Books)
“Polyphonic, multivocal, beautifully harmonious. This collection is full of overlapping echoes of stories and memories, dreams and promises. Universe, Vast Universe speaks so powerfully to these heartbreaking and soul crushing times we’re in.”
- Samaa Abdurraqib, author of Towards a Retreat and Executive Director of the Maine Humanities Council.
“Page after page, the reader is enticed to enter an intimate cave sparkling with tender reminiscences, tiptoeing so as not to wake up the monsters asleep after roaming the city’s streets to devour innocents from abroad… As a former refugee, apart from the sorrow of in-betweenness and the heartache of displacement shared by the contributors, I found joy playing hide and seek with the ghosts of the past in the narrow allies of memory buried in the pages of this book.”
- Reza Jalali, author of Homesick Mosque and Other Stories and the children’s book, Moon Watchers, Shirin’s Ramadan Miracle
“This book is the part of the iceberg the world never sees. We talk about immigration like it's the surface: the arrival, the achievement, the smile in the photo. But underneath is where the real story lives. The sacrifices nobody watched us make, the doubts we never said out loud, the hope we kept anyway. These pages hold that hidden depth. Written with an intergenerational lens, they're the stories we usually only tell around the dinner table, in our prayer houses, among the people who already know. Struggle and resilience. Longing and belonging. Faith that held when nothing else did. This is what it actually costs, and what it actually means, to build a life far from where you began. Welcome into our iceberg. This is the story behind the story.”
- Pious Ali, Portland City Councilor, Community Leader, and Co-Founder I’m Your Neighbor Books
“We hear this as immigrants all the time. Assimilate. Adopt. Leave your culture and traditions at the door, to which we say, No. But the heart of the story to me is to expand rather than replace your identity. That means embrace what is good in America while intentionally preserving languages, foods, traditions, for the future generations…This anthology reflects the immigrant experience of carrying grief from the past while searching for hope, peace, and a sense of belonging in the present…It reminds us to build a life in a new country without losing the stories, the language, and the traditions for the future generations.”
- Deqa Dhalac, MSW, MDP, Member of the Maine House of Representatives
About the Editor:
Nicole Pomeroy is an Iranian-American poet based in rural Midcoast Maine. Her debut collection, A Reckoning, was published by Raspberry Bow Press in 2023.
“I came to Maine by way of Los Angeles and Seattle—places where cultural diversity felt ordinary. When I told people I was moving to the whitest state in the country, the questions came quickly: Why Maine? Wouldn’t you feel isolated? But after a single visit, I fell deeply in love—with the land, the people, and the quiet wildness and slowness of life here. Within months, I moved across the country and made Maine my home. I want other people of diverse cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds who love Maine for these same reasons to feel welcome and rooted here, too.
This anthology was born from a desire to connect first- and second-generation immigrants across Maine, particularly at a moment when immigrant voices are being challenged and silenced. We seek poetry and prose that reflect the many ways immigrants and children of immigrants experience home: stories of arrival and staying, memory and change, joy and grief, belonging and becoming. If you are a first- or second-generation immigrant who calls Maine home, we invite you to share your work and help shape a fuller, more honest portrait of our community.”
Please contact taryn@mainewriters.org with questions.