The River of Heaven

by Hongo, Garrett

• ISBN13: 9780887483585
• ISBN10: 0887483585
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Carnegie Mellon Univ Pr

Summary

The River of Heaven was awarded the 1987 Lamont Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets for a distinguished second book of poems (judges: Philip Booth, Alfred Corn, Mary Oliver). In it Garrett Hongo has drawn from his unusual background (born in Volcano, Hawaii, of Japanese ancestry, and educated in California at Pomona) to provide the materials for poems that would be highly exotic were they not infused with a level-headed sense of realism and a strong feeling that mundane realities are perfectly natural material for the poetry of our time. Here, Garrett Hongo transforms his mundane realities into elegant poetry. The volcanoes of Hawaii, the gritty urban streets of Los Angeles, a California beach after the death of his father--the places of Garrett Hongo's past metamorphose into a poetry that is compelling and immediate.

Table of Contents

Mendocino Rose	p. 3
Nostalgic Catalogue	p. 7
Village: Kahuku-mura	p. 9
Ancestral Graves, Kahuku	p. 11
Obon: Dance for the Dead	p. 14
Pinoy at the Coming World	p. 16
Jigoku: On the Glamour of Self-Hate	p. 20
Hilo: First Night Back	p. 25
Eruption: Pu'u O'o	p. 27
Crossing Ka'u Desert	p. 28
Cloud-Catch	p. 29
Volcano House	p. 31
The Unreal Dwelling: My Years in Volcano	p. 32
Morro Rock	p. 39
Metered Onramp	p. 43
The Sound of Water	p. 46
A Far Galaxy	p. 48
The Cadence of Silk	p. 50
"96 Tears"	p. 52
Portrait of a Lady	p. 56
Four Chinatown Figures	p. 57
Choir	p. 59
The Pier	p. 61
The Underworld	p. 64
The Legend	p. 66
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