Books & Poetry

I Went Aviatin' to China

From the author:

My father, Joe Thomas Pound, graduated from Sullivan High School on a Friday in May 1943. The following Monday, he was on a train to begin basic training in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF). Less than two years later he was flying “The Hump.” He was twenty years old.

With one of the worst wartime survival rates ever, “The Hump” airlift was achieved at the cost of over 1600 airmen in over 700 plane crashes. "Every 340 tons delivered cost the life of a pilot," wrote historian Francis Pike in his book, Hirohito's War: The Pacific War, 1941-1945.

Before she passed away, my mother gave me the letters between her and Dad from during the war, before they were married. All her life my mother kept the small local newspaper clipping that reported her marriage to Dad. We found it in her wallet after she passed away. For such an admirer of Dorothy Parker and advocate of women’s independence and liberation long before that was even a term, it has been remarkable to learn how fully she devoted herself to Dad, their marriage, and our family. That is love.

Purchase this book from Amazon via this link: I Went Aviatin' to China.

Ted's Haiku

Winner of the Handy Andy Award for best limerick in the
2025 Annual Poetry Society of Virginia (PSV) Contest.

They demanded a haiku from Ted.
He submitted a limerick instead.
They demanded a change 
Which was beyond his range,
And pronounced the entire contest dead!

The Mighty Eighth

Winner of the third prize in the 2025 Writers' Guild of Virginia Stokes Award Poetry Contest.

Young they were when Hitler ruled.
They swore their oaths and then were schooled
While Europe in Adolph’s darkness lay,
To bomb the Reich by light of day.

They flew from England to I.P. to A.P. and back.
They flew through storms of fighters and flak.
Fewer returned, but replacements came,
And earned victory, laurels, honor and fame.

Now “The Mighty Eighth” museum in Savannah
Is a storehouse of long past Air Force arcana.
But in Germany the memory is by more than letter
Where a day of clear sky is still called Bomber Wetter.

So give a spare thought when you have time one day
To the lads then flying, now in graves where they lay,
Many side by side in peace, in eternal repose,
After saving our world by the battle they chose.