The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration

An anthology of poetry on Nikkei incarceration, written by descendants of the WWII prisons and camps

A tribute to the 150,000 people incarcerated by the United States and Canada during WWII, this anthology is the first of its kind. The poetry expresses a range of experiences and perspectives from the afterlife of this historical yet enduring injustice. With a foreword by acclaimed poet, activist, and concentration camp survivor, Mitsuye Yamada, and an introduction by the editors, poets Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda, The Gate of Memory explores intergenerational trauma as the contributors, all of whom are descendants of those who were incarcerated, sift through an intimate record of wartime incarceration.

Contributors to this anthology include poets of Japanese American, Japanese Canadian, Okinawan American, Okinawan Canadian, Japanese Hawaiian, Alaska Native, mixed race Nikkei, and Japanese descent. Their poems reimagine, reinhabit, and retell the story of incarceration while embodying its many legacies, through a diversity of modes and themes, creating a panoramic portrait of anti-Asian racism, assimilation, loyalty, resistance, and redemption. The anthology illuminates individual perspectives and reveals collective experience. It insists upon the imperative of poetry in the processes of solidarity and transgenerational healing.

With contributions from: Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, Brittany Arita, Aaron Caycedo-Kimura, Brian Komei Dempster, Miya Folick, Sesshu Foster, Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson, Steve Fujimura, Laura K. Fukumoto, Cathlin Goulding, Rebecca A. Green, Richard Hamasaki, Sharon Hashimoto, Casey Hidekawa Lane/Levinski, Garrett Hongo, Jodi Hottel, Kurt Yokoyama Ikeda, Kevin Irie, Michael Ishii, Erica H. Isomura, Lauren Emiko Ito, Susan Kiyo Ito, Miya Iwataki, Dr. Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan, W. Todd Kaneko, Traci Kato-Kiriyama, Amanda Mei Kim, Christine Kitano, Aisuke Kondo, Garrett Kurai, Keiko Lane, Katherine Terumi Laubscher, Alison Lubar, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Angela Marian May, Ali Meyers-Ohki, Emily Mitamura, Hikari Leilani Miya, Starr Sumie Miyata, James Fujinami Moore, Paulette "Tkl Un Yeik" Moreno, David Mura, Heather Nagami, Noriko Nakada, Greer Nakadegawa-Lee, Carolyn Nakagawa, Yukiko Nakagura (translator), Ryan Hitoshi Nakano, Tamiko Nimura, Mona Oikawa, Troy Osaki, Michael Prior, Brynn Saito, Brandon Shimoda, Patrick Shiroishi, Leanne Toshiko Simpson, Dana Swensen, Kenneth Tanemura, Micah Tasaka, George Uba, Amy Uyematsu, Terry Watada, Anne Watanabe, Syd Westley, Sho Yamagushiku, Doug Yamamoto, Traise Yamamoto. Cover art by Rob Sato.

Brynn Saito is the author of Under a Future Sky (2023), Power Made Us Swoon (2016) and The Palace of Contemplating Departure (2013), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She has received grant support from Densho, Hedgebrook, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times and American Poetry Review and she was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. Brynn lives in the traditional homelands of the Yokuts and Mono peoples (also known as Fresno, CA), where she teaches in the MFA program at California State University, Fresno.

Brandon Shimoda is the author of nine books of poetry and prose, including Hydra Medusa (Nightboat Books, 2023), The Grave on the Wall (City Lights, 2019), which received the PEN Open Book Award, and Evening Oracle (Letter Machine Editions, 2015), which received the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. His next book is on the afterlife of Japanese American incarceration, and is forthcoming from City Lights in 2024. His writing has been published in BOMB, Brick, Harper’s, The Nation, The New York Times, and Poetry, among other venues.