The River of Heaven: Poems by Garrett Hongo

Garrett Hongo is a poet who inhabits many worlds.  This is very clear in The River of Heaven.   The poems are uniquely Hongo’s, inhabiting his world, exploring the people, flora, and landscapes of the poet’s eye.  It certainly helps, but is not necessary, to read Hongo’s rich and moving memoir, Volcano.  So much of what he writes in this collection of poems is reflected in that book.

In the years since this collection has been published, the last poem, “The Legend,” has become popular.  On YouTube numerous people recite and analyze the work.  Reading it in today’s environment, it is understandable.  The story of a senseless act of violence on an immigrant Asian man, and the refusal or inability of the people around him to help, is an apt symbol of alienation for our times. As the man dies a gunshot wound, as he lay dying in the street surrounded by people, even “[t]he noises he makes are nothing to them.”

He dies alone, separated, even from the poet who feels “…so distinct / from the wounded man lying on the concrete / I am ashamed”

All that the poet can give the dead man is a Chinese legend, of the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, who, despite their love, are banished on opposites sides of the heavenly river, and can only meet once a year across a bridge of magpies.  

Hongo gives the man one day of solace in death.   The hands of the weaver girl will take up his cold hands.  The implication, perhaps, is that her hands are warm and gentle.