"Blooming Bones: A Review of Brynn Saito's 'Under a Future Sky' by Lance Maniquis

The stark, black-and-white cover image of a Joshua Tree, stretching its branches against a colorful and ethereal sun, perfectly encapsulates the powerful poems of Brynn Saito’s latest release, Under a Future Sky (Red Hen Press, 2023). Having earned her MA and MFA, Brynn Saito is a Japanese American and Korean American poet, whose work forefronts a delicate and expert control over her phrases. Her prior poem collections are Power Made Us Swoon (2016) and The Palace of Contemplating Departure (2013), and it’s no surprise that Under a Future Sky feels personal and reflective. Saito’s collection of 27 poems in this most recent release has been thoughtfully crafted as she guides her readers through the maze of roots and empowering branches of her family tree, which includes poems focused on perseverance, trauma, and love.
Shining a light on the tragedies and hardships that Japanese Americans faced during World War II, Saito uses themes of nature — how it blossoms and decays over time — to portray life’s beauties and hardships, and to make the case that life is about pivoting and adjusting, while not forgetting one’s roots. This especially applies to poems of Saito’s family history, where — despite being uprooted from their home and relocated to concentration camps — their perseverance transcends that time. Saito shares with her readers just how rocky and treacherous it can be to navigate the Western world as immigrants of color, when that world is against you.
What I appreciate most from this collection is the consistent theme of nature and the words that are associated with it. It’s often critical to set the tone with the opening poem, and the opening poem, “Dear Reader,” truly plants the seed: “Do you believe in the wide open / privacy of the desert, do you believe / in the prophecy of stones?” There’s clashing connotations with “wide open” and “privacy,” as we don’t often associate having privacy with being out in the open, and this sense of the nonsensical is a recurring thread, especially in Saito’s later commentaries on her grandparent’s struggles with living in the camps. Continuing in this first poem, Saito then waters the garden of her audience, connecting with us — the “you” of her grandparents also merging into the “you” of her reader: “My desire // for you is eternal and makes you eternal . . . // . . . I imagined you / drinking midnight tea, or turning your face / to the shameless marigolds . . . // . . . Do you imagine me?” This connection with the reader feels deeply personal, and is again an important theme in this collection as Saito lowers her walls and becomes vulnerable in many poems in this book.
A personal favorite of mine, “Last Lines (I),” appears about halfway through the book: “The cells marched. // Mother, you re-mother. // Bones bloomed and the bodies once inside your body got blessed by city light.” The thoughtful choice of the word “bloomed” to describe a growing baby is subtle yet impactful — a reminder of the themes of nature and, more specifically, trees and their roots and branches. It is also interesting how Saito uses the word “marched” to describe the merging of cells, as if referring to the march of soldiers during World War II, again mindfully tying together multiple themes of her book. The poem ends with, “Who you’ve been can no longer carry you. // That’s the miracle.” Indeed, it is a miracle that seeds can blossom at all, or that life grows and perseveres despite inevitable death; yet, it is clear that Saito calls us to make the most of what we’re given and, especially, to not forget our roots.

LANCE MANIQUIS

Lance is a recent graduate of Woodbury University’s class of 2024 with a BFA in Filmmaking and a personal concentration in video editing. As MORIA’s Creative Non-Fiction editor, Lance is most interested in creative unscripted work in the industry, but is passionate about all aspects of filmmaking. At home, Lance is an aspiring home chef as well as a proud dog and cat owner.