Project Bookshelf: Saturn Browne

I go to boarding school and live in a very small single, which means I do not have as much storage for the books I love—most of my reads I’ve left at home. However, I brought books onto campus with me based on a few factors: my reading interest, how long they’ve been rotting on my bookshelf, and lastly, how much they weigh (when you have two 50-pound suitcases to carry your entire life across the country, things get a little difficult). Most of these books are also for class (unfortunately, I do not find myself casually interpreting the Bible). Moreover, I find my dorm room to be a collection of myself, and I wanted this corner to show personality and mementos of things I cared a lot about, so there’s also a lot of art!

Because I was applying to colleges last fall, I had a lot of school visits where I traveled throughout the east coast. As a result, I accumulated more than enough gifted merch from the admissions office I didn’t know where to put. Thus, there’s a few flags on the wall. I also may or may not have taken a poster copy of the Wesleyan Film Series calendar when I went, since film is also one of my main interests. The Palestinian flag is from a rally I went to in New Haven in December, and the two prints are gifts from friends for my birthday last May. Lastly, there’s a flyer from the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) to work as a gallery guide! The YUAG is one of my favorite places, so I forked off the poster from a current freshman friend and hung it up as well—I hope to work there next fall!

Proportionally, almost a third of the books here are poetry books. I have works from Mary Oliver, Ada Limón, Richard Siken, Noor Hindi, José Olivarez, and my own chapbook. When I attended Miami Book Fair this past November, I also got to meet some of the lovely people at Europa Press and purchased not one, not two, but three of Mieko Kawakami’s works. These are featured on the shelf as well as prose books like Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. Lastly, I have some books for class, such as Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, The Aeneid, The Oxford Annotated Bible, and One Hundred Years of Solitude.

I also possess an incredible array of journals, ranging from my scrapbook to my writing journal I recently retired, to the diary I need to write in more consistently on my desk. Whether written in or not, most of these journals also find their way onto my shelf with my other items: my two tarot and oracle decks I chose out of my collection at home, a turtle an ex gave me, and some tea my father bought for me in junior year.

This shelf has become an extension of me—my beings, my passions, and my memories. I hope sharing it with you extended that feeling of warmth and self even further.

Saturn Browne (she/they) is a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant and the Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate, East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) Artist-in-Residence, and the author of BLOODPATHS. Her work has been recognized by Gone Lawn, GASHER, Beaver Mag, The Pulitzer Center, Foyle Young Poets, and others. She is an incoming student at Yale University.