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The Legend | Introduction

"The Legend" is the concluding poem in Garrett Hongo's award-winning book of poetry The River of Heaven, published in 1988. In an interview with Bill Moyers in The Language of Life, Hongo recalled that the poem was written during an unhappy period in his life, when he was struggling to find direction in his work as a graduate student in literature. On a trip to Chicago, Hongo found himself alone in a hotel room watching a television program on random street violence, which included a segment on an Asian man who was accidentally shot on the street. According to Hongo, the program treated the man as virtually anonymous, vaguely identifying him as Asian. Hongo claimed that the next morning, when he sat down to write, the poem "The Legend" came flowing out of him spontaneously. In addition to portraying images of incidental street violence, the poem contains a reference to an old Asian legend that Hongo had been told as a child. Hongo regards the writing of the poem as an influential moment for him; in fact, he then decided to leave his graduate studies and instead write a book of poems. This poem in particular guided him in his efforts.

"The Legend" is a narrative poem with a contemporary, readable style. Although it is not a long poem, it touches upon many ideas important to Hongo, including the alienation and violence of the streets, the difficulties faced by immigrants in America, the poet's own questioning of his ethnic identity, and the mixing of Asian and Western cultures. The poem is dedicated to the memory of Jay Kashiwamura, who may be assumed to be the man featured on the television program seen by Hongo, who perhaps made an effort to seek out the deceased man's identity so as to pay him respect.

The Legend Summary

Stanza 1

Hongo begins "The Legend" by quickly establishing the setting of the poem: the streets of Chicago during a soft snowfall, in the "twilight of early evening." The narrator uses detailed images to convey a story, with the language focusing on external events. The first image is that of a man carrying a load of laundry, neatly folded within a crumpled shopping bag; the narrator states that the man enjoys the feel of the warm laundry in his hands. Thus, the narrator is one who can make assumptions about the internal state of the character. The narrator then compares the color of the man's face to a Rembrandt painting, alluding to the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), of the European baroque school of painting. This description reveals not only the color of the man's cheeks but also the character of the narrator: he has knowledge and cultural sophistication. As such, the poet is revealing complexity beyond his simple images. At the end of the first stanza comes an instant of foreshadowing, as the last flash of sunset lends an orange glow to the scene.

Stanza 2

In the second stanza, the narrator describes the man. He is Asian, and the narrator estimates him to be either Thai or Vietnamese. Thus, although the narrator has insight into the character's internal state, he is not omniscient. The man is described as frail and poorly dressed, in a working-class jacket and wrinkled pants. The poem continues to show movement, as the man negotiates the icy sidewalk, opens the back door of his car, and puts his laundry inside. Then, although the man remains nameless, the car is identified as a Ford Fairlane. This is, after all, America, where automobiles have names but people in the... » Complete The Legend Summary