For more about me and how I grew to love poetry, you can read "So much to read . . . to hear" by written by journalist Christopher Yasiejko. It's a biographical essay posted at The Delaware Division of the Arts: http://www.artsdel.org/poetlaureate/default.shtmlHere is a bit from that essay: "Balingit, the poet laureate of Delaware since 2008, always has wanted to make the sounds. From a very young age, she wanted to have command of more than the English words at her disposal. Her father, a Filipino immigrant who reached the United States on the eve of the Great Depression as a college-educated civil engineer, never spoke to his children in his native language of Kapampangan. Not a word. . . "