The River of Heaven (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Garrett Kaoru Hongo
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: Family or family life, United States or Americans, Love or romance, Despair, Hope, Poverty or poor people, Los Angeles, Immigration or emigration, Death or dying, Success or failure, Hawaii, Pacific Ocean, Isolation
Yellow Light (1982) was Garrett Hongo's first book of poetry, and The River of Heaven, his second, won the 1987 Lamont Poetry Prize. Divided between the Hawaiian settings of Hongo's childhood (part 1) and the Los Angeles settings of his teenage years and beyond (part 2), the poems in The River of Heaven are sometimes about the poet himself and sometimes about characters whose lives recommend them to his sympathy and analysis.
In part 1, some of these characters are hustlers made romantic by Hongo's treatment of them. Bad luck helps to make them interesting in...
[The entire page is 1376 words long]
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