Garrett Hongo

Garrett Hongo was born in Volcano, a village next to the crater of Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii, in 1951, a fourth-generation Japanese American whose ancestors migrated to the islands as

The title poem of my new book appeared in the New Yorker on June 2, 2025. Link to audio recording provided as well. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/an-ocean-of-clouds-garrett-hongo-poem

Welcome to “In Retrospect,” our interview series which asks renowned poets to look back over their poems and collections, mapping out their poetic processes. From their early writing to their most recent collection,

Garrett Hongo joins Kevin Young to read “T’ang Notebook,” by Charles Wright, and his own poem “On Emptiness.” Hongo is the author of several books of poetry and nonfiction, including “Ocean of