Anthology

4/1/2025
The Gate of Memory
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.

The Gate of Memory — out on April 1

“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

“To move through The Gate of Memory is to imagine a we that awoke from the fascist fever dream of mass deportation and incarceration.”

—Naomi Murakawa

“This offering of intergenerational love stunned me with its depth and breadth.”

—Rita Wong

The Gate of Memory leads me back to my nisei parents, now gone, whose memories I can no longer coax from them. This glorious outpouring of voices fills the silence I knew growing up in the shadow of internment.

—Kerri Sakamoto

“As time creeps further and further away from WWII, it is all the more critical to remember the legacy of our history. The Gate of Memory deeply honors these stories.”

—Mitsuye Yamada, from the foreword

“May these words render solace, rise as haunting stars to light our way.”

—Karen Tei Yamashita

Poetry Reading!

Mitsuye reads at 1:09:04

SFSU | The Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives present

Mitsuye Yamada’s 100th Birthday

A poets’ reading and tribute.

A Virtual Event
Hosted by Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda

9/23/2023 — The Poetry Center is deeply honored to present a poets’ reading and tribute to acclaimed poet, essayist, educator, feminist, and human rights activist, Japanese American Poet Mitsuye Yamada, to help mark her 100th birthday and the extending influence of her remarkable life and work. This online event is hosted by poets Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda and organized with the kind assistance of Hedi Yamada Mouchard.

This online event is free and open to the public.

Participants include: Marilyn Chin, Chrystos, doris diosa davenport, W. Todd Kaneko, traci kato-kiriyama, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Cherríe Moraga, and Nellie Wong, in addition to our hosts, Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda.

Seattle Times

Acclaimed poet, essayist, educator, feminist and human rights activist, Mitsuye May Yamada has released her newest collection of poetry, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems. Yamada was born in Kyushu, Japan and grew up in Seattle, Washington. As a teenager, she was incarcerated at Minidoka concentration camp along with her family. After the war, Yamada was one of the first and most vocal of Asian American women writers who wrote about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Poet Essayist Feminist Activist

Mitsuye Yamada

Poetry book by
Mitsuye Yamada

UCSB DEPT OF ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES

Full Circle:
New and Selected Poems

by Mitsuye Yamada

ORDER NOW - $16.50

Full Circle New and Selected Poems

Mitsuye Yamada
Foreword by Cherríe Moraga
Essays by Diane C. Fujino and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim

Acclaimed Japanese American poet, essayist, educator, feminist and human rights activist, Mitsuye May Yamada has released her newest collection of poetry, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems. Yamada was born in Kyushu, Japan and grew up in Seattle, Washington. As a teenager, she was incarcerated at Minidoka concentration camp along with her family. After the war, Yamada was one of the first and most vocal of Asian American women writers who wrote about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. She has authored poetry collections, Camp Notes and Other Poems(1976) and Desert Run: Poems and Stories(1988).
Now, at the age of 96, she has released her latest work, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems(2019).

About the Publisher: The Department of Asian American Studies at UCSB

The Department of Asian American Studies at UCSB was the very first academic department dedicated to the study of Asian Americans at a major research university, and the first department in the United States to offer a Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian American Studies.

The Department offers undergraduate majors the opportunity to study and understand the experiences of Asian Americans, particularly their histories, communities, and cultures. Students learn to evaluate the existing literature in Asian American Studies, to analyze a variety of data on Asian Americans, to conduct original research, and to participate in internships and social justice issues.

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Whether she writes from the landscape of the desert, the interiors of home, or the struggle of Japanese Americans, Mitsuye Yamada’s poetry is a gift to American literature.

— Nellie Wong
author

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Mitsuye Yamada is one of the great matriarchs of Asian-American literature … a true “poet of witness,” one who lived through almost a century of American chaos: from emigration to internment camps, from nuclear disaster to multiple forms of institutionalized social and racial injustice…. Her work is as beautiful as it is necessary and will inspire many generations to come.

— Marilyn Chin
author of A Portrait of the Self as Nation

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“Her reflections of the camp are vivid, pain-filled, weighed with irony … She confronts the invisibility of Asian American women in American Culture.”

— Los Angeles Times

Newest Release
FULL CIRCLE
NEW AND SELECTED POEMS