From Unincorporated Territory [Åmot] - Paperback

by Craig Santos Perez (Author)

Winner of the National Book Award for Poetry, this collection of experimental and visual poems dives into the history and culture of the poet's homeland, Guam.

This book is the fifth collection in Craig Santos Perez's ongoing from unincorporated territory series about the history of his homeland, the western Pacific island of Guåhan (Guam), and the culture of his indigenous Chamoru people. "Åmot" is the Chamoru word for "medicine," commonly referring to medicinal plants. Traditional Chamoru healers were known as yo'åmte; they gathered åmot in the jungle and recited chants and invocations of taotao'mona, or ancestral spirits, in the healing process.

Through experimental and visual poetry, Perez explores how storytelling can become a symbolic form of åmot, offering healing from the traumas of colonialism, militarism, migration, environmental injustice, and the death of elders.

Author Biography

Craig Santos Perez is an indigenous Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). He is the coeditor of six anthologies; the author of five poetry collections, including Habitat Threshold; and the author of the monograph, Navigating Chamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization. He is professor in the English department and an affiliate faculty with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies and the Indigenous Politics Program at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa. He has received the American Book Award, Pen Center USA/Poetry Society of America Literary Prize, Hawai'i Literary Arts Council Award, Nautilus Book Award, and the George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from the Associated Writing Programs.