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The Gods We Worship Live Next Door (Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry)

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The 2005 winner of the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry, The Gods We Worship Live Next Door is a stark free- verse collection. Written by a Manila native who survived the Bataan Death March and a WW II Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines, The Gods We Worship Live Next Door images horrific events in human history with the stark clarity that only art can provide. A dark, vivid insight into unjustifiable cruelties and wrongs. From a Filipino Death March Survivor Whose WW II Benefits Were Rescinded by the US Congress in 1946: 1. I left three years ago. / 2. If you want to know about my rural childhood, ask my survivors. / 3. If you want to know how I was recruited into the United States Army at twenty, ask President Roosevelt. / 4. If you want to know how I ended up in the Death March at twenty-one, ask General MacArthur. / 5. If you want to know how many of my friends perished in the Japanese concentration camps, ask General Homma. / 6. If you want to know how I contracted malaria, beri-beri, dysentery, skin disease, gastrointestinal disease in one month, ask the Japanese Camp Commander. / 7. If you want to know how my military benefits were rescinded at the end of the war, ask President Truman. / 8. If you want to know how I became a 100% disabled veteran, ask my V.A. doctors.