Fred Norman’s book, A Hill of Poems, is a collection of the poems he has written and read each year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day at the The Crosses of Lafayette in California. The memorial is a visible reminder of the thousands of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The property which can be seen from the freeway was donated by Johnson and Louise Clark. Since the fall of 2006, volunteers install a cross for each soldier, maintain the site, and regularly update a large sign with the number of deaths. The twice yearly events include music, poetry readings, and speeches to pay respect to those who have died and continue to die in these wars.
Fred Norman, born in 1936, is a veteran with ten years of service in the Marines and Air Force. After the military he went to college and majored in Chinese Studies and later obtained an MA in Writing. He has worked for newspapers, taught, and had a job in programming before he retired. He is a poet for peace. All the sales from his book go to maintenance for the Crosses of Lafayette.
My next post will be an interview with Fred about writing.
