Coral Road: Poems

Coral Road: Poems

Garrett Hongoâ€™s long-awaited third collection of poems is a beautiful, elegiac gathering of his Japanese-American ancestors in their Hawaiian landscape and a testament to the power of poetry, as it brings their marginalized yet heroic narratives into the realm of art.

In Coral Road Hongo explores the history of the impermanent homeland his ancestors found on the island of Oâ€˜ahu after their immigration from southern Japan, and meditates on the dramatic tales of the islands. In sumptuous narrative poems he takes up strands of family stories and what he calls â€œa long legacy of silenceâ€ about their experience as contract laborers along the North Shore of the island. In the opening sequence, he brings to life the story of his great-grandparents fleeing from one plantation to another, finding their way by moonlight along coral roads and railroad tracks. As his grandmother, a girl of ten with an infant on her back, traverses â€œtwelve-score stands of cane / chittering like small birds, nocturnal harpies in the feral constancies of wind,â€ Hongo asks, â€œWhere is the Virgil who might lead me through the shallow underworld of this history?â€ In fact, it is Hongo who guides himselfâ€”and usâ€”as, in these devoted acts of recollection, he seeks to dispel the dislocation at the center of his legacy.

The love of artâ€”making beauty in however provisional a cultureâ€”has clearly been a guiding principle in Hongoâ€™s poetry. In this content-rich verse, Hongo hearkens to and delivers â€œthe luminous and the anecdotal,â€ bringing forth a complete aesthetic experience from the shards that make up a life.
Country USA
Brand Knopf
Manufacturer Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Binding Paperback
Color Multicolor
ReleaseDate 2013-04-02
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9780375712043

Country	USA
Brand	Knopf
Manufacturer	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Binding	Paperback
Color	Multicolor
ReleaseDate	2013-04-02
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9780375712043

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