ABSTRACT

[Garret Kaoru Hongo was born on May 30, 1951 in Volcano, Hawaii and grew up in Gardena, California. In 1982 he published his first book of poems, Yellow Light. He has won many awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1989 for The River of Heaven. In 1993 he edited an important anthology, The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America. Late in 1995 he published a poetic memoir, Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai’i as well as Under Western Eyes, an anthology of essays by important Asian American writers. Hongo is currently a Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon at Eugene.]