River of Heaven - Softcover

Hongo, Garrett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394757858 ISBN 13: 9780394757858

Publisher: Knopf, 1988

Synopsis

A native Hawaiian of Japanese ancestry draws on his own exotic background for this collection of poems, which also evokes a strong sense of realism

About this title

From Library Journal:

In its concerns and techniques, Hongo's second bookthe 1987 Lamont Poetry Selectionsuggests comparisons to Wordsworth and Whitman. Combining the former's preoccupation with personal remembrance and the latter's penchant for syntactic repetition and catalogs, Hongo attempts to dazzle the reader with megadoses of imagery both lush ("the harpstring shade of tree ferns") and frank ("a patch of wild land full of blown garbage"). Sometimes he flirts with excess ("spider lilies and ginger flowers like paper cranes/ furling in the tongues of overgrowth"), but the character studies and first-person narratives that speak of life in nonwhite America attain an authority unobscured by imagistic mannerisms.Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

“Garrett Hongo has the poetic skills to match his amplitude of feeling and sympathy, and his The River of Heaven is a wonderful book.” (William Matthews)

“I love The River of Heaven for its stories and people. Garrett Hongo searches out those who inhabit alleys, islands, old graveyards, piers, and learns that ‘splendor must be something of what we all want.’ He extends splendor―and the sight and voice and concern of American poetry.” (Maxine Hong Kingston)

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0394757858
• ISBN 13: 9780394757858
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 10