Prize-Winning Poet Garrett Hongo at DePauw Wednesday

October 22, 2001

October 22, 2001, Greencastle, Ind. - Distinguished poet, writer and teacher Garrett Hongo will visit the DePauw University campus this Wednesday, October 24, 2001 to deliver a 7:30 p.m. reading in Meharry Hall of historic East College. A Pulitzer Prize nominee who teaches literature, creative non-fiction and a poetry workshop in the graduate program at the University of Oregon in Eugene, will speak as part of the Kelly Reading Series sponsored by DePauw's Department of English.

Garrett Hongo was born in Volcano, Hawaii, in 1951. He is the author of two books of poetry: The River of Heaven (1988), which was the Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Yellow Light (1982). His most recent book is Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai'i (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), and he has also edited Songs My Mother Taught Me: Stories, Plays and Memoir by Wakako Yamauchi (1994) and The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America (1993). His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is currently professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon at Eugene, where he directed the Program in Creative Writing from 1989 to 1993.

The Encyclopedia of American Literature notes, "Hongo's use of parallel phrasing can be described at times as Whitmanesque; in his poetic narrative, he carefully layers words and images. Hongo infuses the visual with other sensate details. Also, animal imagery as well as Hawaiian legend inform his poetic impressions. Consequently, memories imbued with cultural and organic resonances display reverence for nature and its power to help people establish their own identities."

Garrett Hongo's reading is free and open to the public.

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