A senior Trump advisor, Stephen Miller, sparked a furor last week when he dismissed the famous poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty. In response, we asked 21 poets: what type of poem would Trump like to see at the statue?

Last week, Donald Trump threw his support behind a “merit”-based immigration policy that would would drastically curb legal immigration to America. Under the plan, applicants with English proficiency, doctorates, high salaries, investment holdings and credentials like Olympic medals and Nobel prizes would be given preference.

The proposal kicked off a ferocious debate at a White House press briefing when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Miller if the plan violated the spirit of the poem The New Colossus, inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. The poem, by Emma Lazarus, includes the celebrated welcoming lines: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Miller responded by noting that the poem “was added later and was not part of the original Statue of Liberty”. He went on to attack Acosta for his “cosmopolitan bias”.

And so, the Guardian asked 21 American poets – from the Pulitzer prize winner Rita Dove to the Inuit poet Joan Kane – to imagine in writing what type of poem would Trump like to see at the statue? We also gave the poets the option to write a contemporary take on the Lazarus poem. What follows is the extraordinary collection of work they produced on a short deadline.

We’d also like to invite our readers to join the Guardian’s Lady Liberty poetry challenge. We’ll publish a selection of our favorite reader-submitted poems. You can read more about how to enter here.