The Gate of Memory, edited by Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda, is a collection of poetry by the descendants of people incarcerated in U.S. prison camps during WWII. If the incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese descent was a stone dropped into a generation’s collective memory, then this book represents the continuing ripple effect of the injustice.
The poems in the anthology are linked by the legacy of incarceration, but each poet approaches the topic with their own perspective, writing style, and personal family connections. The variety of poems and voices reminds us that each person in a marginalized group experiences injustice differently. I appreciate how this book opens many pathways to the story of incarceration, and records the ongoing impact of this moment in U.S. history as it passes through generations of families.
The opening poem sets the tone with a challenge and is fueled by the anger that so many families buried in the interest of self-preservation. Annie Yukie Watanabe’s speaker says, “go ahead,” not only to those who incarcerated people of Japanese descent in 1942, but to those who continue to find ways to separate, remove and silence groups of people they see as a threat. Those two words signal what’s to come in the rest of the anthology – a refusal to bury the past, acts of defiance in the face of shame, and a promise to haunt the future with poetry.
There are five sections in the book, which I came to see as different gates to understanding the ways incarceration impacts survivors and their families. Section I: I Bow at the Graves takes us to the land where the camps are and where descendants can still return to the space where their families were imprisoned. The land where the incarceration camps were built was often harsh and unforgiving. Dust and sand come up again and again in these poems, as constant companions, and a reminder that the prisoners were unwelcome. In her poem “Shadow Mountain,” Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan describes a visit to Manzanar writing, “the air was angry, the shadows followed us, / the spirits inside the camp weren’t resting,” painting a picture of a place that still holds the unresolved emotion of its unwilling inhabitants.
In Section II: This is Not the Whole Story, the poetry is full of blanks, spaces, and missing voices. Kurt Yokoyama Ikeda transforms a blank questionnaire into an invitation to collaboratively write a poem as a community. Aaron Caycedo-Kimura uses large spaces between phrases to toy with the pacing of the poem “Dad Called It Camp,” forcing the reader to wander through deserts of white space as they connect the past to the present. In “Letters from Poston Relocation Camp (1942-45)” David Mura only gives us one side of an exchange of letters between Michiko and an unnamed writer. Through their use of form and silence, the poets in this section recreate the feeling of never knowing exactly what happened to one’s family.
Section III: Each Leaf / Remembers acts as a filter for poets whose relatives passed down those holey stories of incarceration. Many of the writers in this section take on the task of telling someone else’s story despite lapses in memory, untranslatable loss and the weight of the unspoken. Instead of allowing often threadbare accounts to fade or remain buried, the poets in this section put them down in stark black ink on white pages where they can be read and recited over and over. Troy Osaki conveys the power of these memories in speaking of his grandma whose “memory becomes a kitchen knife / you hide beneath your pillow. You sharpen / its blade every night.” Over time these stories have the power to serve as protection and even a weapon against a country that repeats its mistakes.
This anthology can only exist because of the passage of time, which is highlighted in Section IV: I Can Hold My Breath for Years. In this section we see glimpses of justice as poets address public hearings and reparations, which brought relief and closure for some, but which could never fully repair the lasting harm caused by incarceration. The anger is still potent after all of these years, and in the poem “Tsuru for Solidarity,” Michael Ishii shows how that anger is now channeled to other, parallel injustices like the incarceration of immigrants at the Northwest Detention Center by ICE.
The final section of the book, V: Be Strong Now, honors the passing of many of the survivors whose stories can only live on through the generations who follow them. This small, final section was especially moving to me because instead of creating an even greater sense of distance between those who have died and those who remain, the poets manage to compress that distance and make the presence of those ancestors feel even more potent. In the last poem of the anthology, Lauren Ito writes,
Always
Especially these days
Always.
Always.
Remember this
Inhaling sunrise and birdsong
We never arrive alone.
I need this reminder that I am accompanied by ancestors and allies, and this encouragement to be strong now as my country rushes toward the same violations of civil liberties, the same cruelties and the same hatred that led to incarceration in 1942. This is the exact right moment for this book. It’s evidence of how traumas survive, flowing from one generation to the next. It’s a roadmap for defying guilt, shame and silence. It’s an invitation to speak up, to record and share stories even if they’re incomplete or fading. It asks us to listen, to ask questions and to take action.
Editors Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda will discuss The Gate of Memory with author and playwright Frank Abe at Elliott Bay Book Company on Thursday April 10, 2025 at 7pm.
