The Palace of Contemplating Departure

Winner of the 2011 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, Brynn Saito s The Palace of Contemplating Departure is an intimate, quietly powerful debut collection, weaving stories of sudden departures, forced removals, and the journeys chosen in between."

Brynn Saito’s debut collection of poetry begins in a cityscape and ends \u201cdeep in the cloud-filled valley,\u201d traversing myriad terrains—both emotional and physical—as it weaves towards completion. From the bays of Denmark to the deserts of California, Saito’s searching lyricism gathers stories of sudden departures, forced removals, and the journeys chosen in between. Narrative selections inspired by childhood, sisterhood, lost loves and newfound freedoms are cased by interludes of otherworldly visions and persona poems spoken from many perspectives—animal and otherwise. This is a book about the ever-present capacity for wonder, transformation, and change: \u201cThe fighter is in me,\u201d claims the speaker in the poem \u201cWinter in Denmark,\u201d \u201cand the future is in me.\u201d Inside every moment of rage or loss—beneath tough city sidewalks and under the quiet of a moonlit valley—is another moment, ripe with possibility and foretelling the future sky.