Ebook
Sir David and the Green Card maps a journey through the twists of today's U.S. immigration system, with all its surreal demands and medieval burdens. From a dark beginning in cold British traffic to the seared highways of California, these poems recount a ten-year quest for permanence and the motley characters - real and imagined - met along the way. Join a vibrant tour through machinery suspected-yet-unknown, a story of remaining human inside political scaffolding, and a scrutiny of the complex privilege of navigating it all as an English-speaker.
“How do you make a new country your home? David Davies brilliantly captures the contradictions between the sense of alienation and the awe of discovering the enriching nature of the immigrant experience. Looking inside-out and from the outside-in, using delightful humor and musicality, he allows us to join him in his own personal, yet remarkably universal ongoing journey.”
—Daphny Maman, screenwriter and lyricist
“The playful poems in Sir David and the Green Card capture the nuances of an expatriate’s wanderings, as he pursues the Holy Grail—a green card—all the while leading the reader into zones of inspired wonder. ‘The Riddle Game’ and ‘Deploy the Accent’ are laugh-out-loud gems. Whether he’s waiting on a line or dealing with paperwork, David Davies polishes life’s humdrum frustrations and makes them sparkle.”
—LindaAnn LoSchiavo, author of Apprenticed to the Night
“A beautiful collection of poems that crosses borders with the dreams and the romance of a modern knight-errant. David Davies’s words are here to stay; they are lyrical footpaths, humorous quests, a welcoming home for literature’s wanderers.”
—Alexandros Plasatis, founder, The Other Side of Hope
“As soon as you read this book, you will want to give a copy to someone else—especially if you (or they) have ever lived through an international move. A Terry Gilliam mixture of romance, idealism, and bureaucratic absurdity; a grail quest achievable only by the perfectly pure, with attendant riddles, dragons, and apparitions. Beautifully written and attractively presented. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
—Romie Stott, senior poetry editor, Strange Horizons
David Davies has been writing since he left home. His poems have appeared in diverse places, including Rise Up Review, Granfalloon, Green Lantern Press and The Other Side Of Hope. He is the recipient of a 2022 Colorado Book Award and has twice won the King Edward Prize for Youth Poetry.