Some of the first books I read as a little kid were my older siblings’ literature class books. I still have the books boxed in the garage, currently lost to the moving Gods. Back then, in the early to mid 60s, English and American literature were required classes in high school. They would leave their school books on the washer/dryer in our utility room, and I would go there early in the mornings before the rest of the house was awake, and poke through their stuff.

I am sure if they knew what I was doing they would have been angry, but I was under the radar, and it was too early for teenaged kids to be awake or aware. I am sure they never knew what I was doing.

There must have been other books–math, science, geography–but I only remember opening the literature books. I remember the English lit book front end was a lot of Shakespeare, that I didn’t get into, and there were essays but I skipped those because they consisted of big paragraphs of words, too advanced for me to digest.

But poetry! The lines in the poems were short, edible chunks of words a grade schooler could read. I liked William Ernest Henley, William Wordsworth (always confused with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was also one of my favorites), Walt Whitman. There were more. Lots more. Poetry was my gateway.

So it’s not surprising that I have a couple poems submitted to Windows of Light. Grace Morizawa is also more serious poet than I. She has several in the anthology, as does Gloria Kumagai. The topics range from the WW2 battlefield in France to Taiko drumming, to the Japanese incarceration and more.

One of my favorite lines is from Grace’s poem, Mother Tongue:

“Don’t let the photos of camp dances fool you.
My parents could dance to ‘In the Mood’
and sing songs of sorrow in Japanese.
My father would write haiku about the sun
and streaks of blood in Japanese.
Don’t forget the last song at any dance
Was ‘Don’t Fence Me In.'”

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Join us on October 9 in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a discussion of Storytelling.

You can also pose questions to the writers themselves on our September 29 Zoom meeting.