About this item
Highlights
- 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.
- Author(s): Brynn Saito & Brandon Shimoda
- 288 Pages
- Poetry, Anthologies (multiple authors)
Description
Book Synopsis
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.
Review Quotes
"Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda have gathered a community of sixty-seven descendant poets to fold together diverse memories learned and seen through the lens of injustice, to honor our past and to activate the present with fierce desire for a different future. This pilgrimage of poems, blessed by elder poets Mitsuye Yamada and Lawson Inada, is here gifted at The Gate of Memory. Our parents, who once named that memory ambiguously camp, have passed beyond that gate. May these words render solace, rise as haunting stars to light our way."
--Karen Tei Yamashita