Book cover for The Gate of Memory featuring artwork by Rob Sato
The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025)
An anthology of poetry by descendants of the WWII-era Nikkei (Japanese / Okinawan / American / Canadian) incarceration edited by Brandon Shimoda and Brynn Saito with a foreword by acclaimed poet, activist, and concentration camp survivor, Mitsuye Yamada. Visit the TGOM website for more information.
“Out of the wreckage of the camps, these poets have created lasting objects of beauty, sorrow and rage. The Gate of Memory is a landmark anthology to be read and reread.” —Julie Otsuka
Book cover for Under a Future Sky. Photo by Dave Lehl Photography.
Under a Future Sky (Red Hen Press, August 2023)
Under a Future Sky is anchored in Brynn’s journey with her father to the desert prison where, over 80 years ago, her grandparents met and made a life.
“Brynn Saito writes with a rare, inimitable grace in her most personal and politically engaged book to date. The epistolary poems for family and the impact of internment and inheritance are imagined with music and wisdom. I feel more alive after these poems and her reminder, ‘Beautiful prayer animal, rise to the occasion of your living.’ Under a Future Sky is a masterpiece.” — Lee Herrick
Front cover image of Power Made Us Swoon
Power Made Us Swoon (Red Hen Press, 2016)
“It is not easy to be austerely uncertain and open-hearted at the same time, but Brynn Saito pulls it off beautifully. These strong poems are a reckoning imbued with a peculiarly western American light, gathered out of the very air between the farm towns of the Central Valley and the internment camp at Manzanar. It is a light loyal to acceptance." — David Rivard
Front cover image of Bright Power, Dark Peace
Bright Power, Dark Peace (Diode Editions, 2016)
“Readers are guided through the ruins of a city, and perhaps a society. In this exquisite collaboration, from the ruins are the possibilities. From the unsalvageable, what will save. The magic of Saito and Brimhall’s lyricism returns what was thought to be lost into what is, for certain, miraculous.” — Oliver de la Paz
Front cover image of The Palace of Contemplating Departure
The Palace of Contemplating Departure (Red Hen Press, 2013)
"This is a sacred internal travel, carving its mighty shadow on the world. How vibrant is the voice of Brynn Saito; how angelic, bestial, seductive, and divine. The Palace of Contemplating Departure is an offering of the highest order, written in sanctuary, a promise on the tongue, a litany of urgent prayers.” —Tina Chang
Image of front cover of Dear—, the chapbook.
Dear— (Densho, 2020)
Dear— is a living letter and portrait archive and chapbook addressing themes of justice, art-making, and intergenerational healing. Grounded in the experiences of the WWII-era incarceration of the Japanese American community, Dear— was funded by an Artists Initiative Grant from Densho.