My Poetry Reading at the Library of Congress, Monday, 10/26/09

Hi, everyone. Many MANY apologies for having neglected my blog for so long. It's like I fell off a bicycle, walked it home, and then for some reason couldn't ride it again. The more time passed, the harder it became to pick up again. I promise to get back on the blog bycicle here after I get back from Washington, DC, in three days or so. I am typing this blog post in a hotel business center before I take the train into the city and do the tourist thing. Nothing like a new location to liven up the blog-making. Which I am finding that I'm having to relearn as I go here. I'm in DC because I'm giving a poetry reading tomorrow, Monday, 10/26, as part of the conference "Unsung Heroes: Asian Pacific American Heroism during World War II." This is open to the public so come and check it out. The event runs from 9:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., and my reading is, I believe, at 9:00. I will be reading poems regarding WWII from my collections Ghost Wars and Fighting Kite. If you do make the reading, come up and say hi to me. Also, there will be copies of Fighting Kite for sale. I'll sign one for you. See you tomorrow? A quick update: I just talked by phone to Reme Grefalda, the organizer of tomorrow's conference, and found out my reading will be around 10:00. Before my presentation is the keynote address by retired Army general Antonio Taguba. Do come at 9:00 anyway to catch his address ... it will be well worth it. Taguba, you may recall, is the general who investigated the Abu Ghraib atrocities and wrote the official US Army report on the incident, a report in which he was extremely critical. He even testified that he was convinced Rumsfeld had lied to Congress about Abu Ghraib. Later, after his retirement from the military, Taguba publicly accused the Bush administration of war crimes. I am certainly looking forward to his keynote address and to meeting him. His father and my father both fought in the Philippine Scouts (a US Army unit) and both survived the Bataan Death March. Incidentally, it seems just unbelievable to me that I could be just a couple of years younger than a General — a retired one, at that! Somewhere inside, I'm still that young Army soldier who saw all Generals as old men. But it was about 35 years ago when I was that guy. Does that make me an old man now? Hmm. Nahhhh.