This collection was stunning and a truly immersive experience. Often I can read through a collection in less than a couple hours, but these poems were an opportunity to be in the place Hongo takes you.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early review copy.

Some of these poems hit just right, but a lot of them didn't work for me. I think I was not the right audience for this collection. These are very autobiographical, and if this were in a memoir I might be riveted, but as poems, it didn't work. It did not “speak” to me.

When they connect, they feel like magic.

<blockquote>
<b>Watching the Full Moon in a Time of Pandemic</b>
I watch the full moon’s light slide like silver water through the silhouettes of trees
that cast long shadows over mounds and rocks, a hidden stream, and the expanse of lawn.
I think back to when I played hide-and-seek games with cousins at the shoreline,
Pūpūkea near Shark’s Cove on Oʻahu, dodging in and out of the shadows of ironwood trees.

We hid amidst the vapors of murk mixed with sea spray and wild laughter, sought one another in
sands under the glassy moonlight that splashed our bodies like surf.
We stood as though rooted, silent while sighs from the sea carried through cool, night air.

I was four or I was five and I was not Leanne or Neal or Kerry, but myself,
counting my own breath, one with the dark, gazing at the silver gleam of heaven’s road
making its path from below the moon across heaving, purple waters to where I stood
as I do tonight, sixty years from that first shining. I told it to my daughter,
who hid in moonshade, isolate and lonely, missing the welter of what life had been,
her father five as a child unfathomable, her slim form disappearing, while I stood, seeking.
</blockquote>

There are A LOT of words for the colors of the ocean here, which I did appreciate. A sampling from just a few poems: blue, celadon, cyan, azure, turquoise, aquamarine, indigo, viridian, azurite, black, ochre, white, cerulean, zaffre (yes I had to look that one up), brown, sapphire, flaxen, cobalt, green, grey. Yep, that's the ocean!!


Normally I prefer to read my NetGalley books on my Kindle app, but the formatting for this one was not ready for Kindle yet, lines ran into each other, the ending and beginning of poems merged, some words were missing a few letters, etc. Luckily I could read on the NetGalley reader, which was a much cleaner copy, but unfortunately that did not let me zoom. Suffice it to say that reading was a challenge. And formatting is critical for enjoyment of a poem. So my review of this book doesn't feel fair, since I struggled so much to simply read it, it was difficult to enjoy it.

Hongo's poetry is highly descriptive and some of his descriptions are outright swoon-worthy in their beauty and sensual accuracy. This trail of stunning language may keep a person reading but they are not the meat of this book. Within the sparkle there are shadows, especially American shadows of xenophobia that have created unnecessary struggles for anyone not of European ancestry. We see the bright and dark shifting clouds of Hongo's ancestors in passing as they go from living a difficult life in a beautiful place, getting a foothold on progress and then having it ripped out from under them. Through all of this Hongo is weaving his own journey of affiliation with beauty and a life of learning and teaching, a life which his laboring ancestors wanted for their children, thought of as an elevated vocation. Hongo takes us to meet the people who influenced him and in the second half of the book takes on an adventure in the sources of art and inspiration as it has been conceptualized through the ages.

I have read some books labeled poetry recently that don't navigate well between storytelling and poetry or essay and poetry, flopping over what I consider the line into flash fiction or creative nonfiction or even exposition. So it's noticeable to me how deftly Hongo manages modes within his poetry. He's like a cloud himself, touching the earth here and there as he glides along and caressing the ocean of history and thought.

Much as I enjoyed this book as a reader of poetry, I'm also looking it to recommend to people who may not read poetry regularly. So getting down to brass tacks, who is this book for broadly? People who like to learn about a poet's influences, people who love lushly descriptive language, people who have struggled through marginalized status, the children of immigrants (especially Asian immigrants), people who love thinking about aesthetics, people who have a love-hate relationship with the United States of America.

I will be reviewing this book on Goodreads (which does not yet have a cover image!), probably the same day after posting this review. I'll post on Youtube when I have time to make a video, and on Amazon once it has been published. Those reviews may differ slightly as I have more time to digest this book. I did want to review it here as quickly as possible upon completing it. Thanks for publishing this book.