from unincorporated territory [lukao]

by Craig Santos Perez

Overview

from unincorporated territory [lukao] is the fourth book in native Chamorro poet Craig Santos Perez’s ongoing series about his homeland, the Western Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam), and his current home, Hawai'i. He utilizes eco-poetic, decolonial, diasporic, indigenous, documentary, epic, and avant-garde modes to weave stories of creation, birth, migration, food sovereignty, and parenting. This work not only protests the devastating impacts of colonialism, militarism, and environmental injustice across the Pacific, it also expresses a vision of a sustainable and hopeful future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632430410
Publisher:	Omnidawn Publishing, Inc.
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	104
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Craig Santos Perez is an indigenous Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). He is the coeditor of six anthologies; the author of poetry collections including Habitat Threshold and his ongoing from unincorporated territory series; and the author of the monograph, Navigating Chamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization. He is professor in the English department at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa. Perez has received the National Book Award for Poetry, American Book Award, Pen Center USA/Poetry Society of America Literary Prize, Hawaiʻi Literary Arts Council Award, Nautilus Book Award, and the George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from the Associated Writing Programs.

What People are Saying About This

Juan Felipe Herrera

“Santos Perez writes ‘Hinasso’ (imagination, thought, memory, or reflection) painted forwards+backwards and out-scribed in multiple dimensions. Yes, it is true and possible in the land of the Chamorro, in the terrain, mind, culture once colonized, ‘kidnapped,’ and now re-called and re-created by its own will-spirit walk here, in this ‘procession,’ in this knowledge-song, carved Chamorro walk-talk-map. An impossible sacredness in this book, drawn from the collective-body-cartography, is written. Ground-shaking, delight of breath and ecstatic heart.”

Editorial Reviews

08/21/2017
This fourth installment in Perez’s “from Unincorporated Territory” series marks an important shift in aesthetic strategy and lyric impulse. The three preceding books—, , and —interrogated America’s colonial legacy and continuing military expansion in Guam using a wide array of appropriated text and formally varied lyrics that intersperse English and Chamorro. Some of those same elements are found here, though these poems are decidedly shorter, less frenetic, more formally conventional, and more narrative-driven. Centered on the birth of his daughter, this collection is first and foremost a family story and creation tale, albeit one in which the details of Guam’s ecological and cultural degradation, American militarism and capitalism, and the diaspora of the Chamorro people and language continue to play an important part: “is this the sound// of our ancestors pulsing/ your taught skin drum \ // pele dances toward / \is our house prepared// for birth \ the ocean absorbs/ carbon dioxide then acidifies// \ whales, birds, and fish/ change migration patterns// \ my mom calls from california,/ talks drought and wildfires // // will be born in april/ of the hottest year in history.” Perez condenses his overarching sociopolitical concerns, bracketing the story of pregnancy, birth, an uncertain future, and a celebration of new life. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Native Chamorro poet Santos Perez unveils the fourth book in his series about his homeland, Guåhan (Guam), and his current home, Hawaii. He utilizes eco-poetic, decolonial, diasporic, indigenous, documentary, epic, and avant-garde modes to weave stories of creation, birth, migration, food sovereignty, and parenting.”
—Alex Crowley, Publishers Weekly


 “Centered on the birth of his daughter, this collection is first and foremost a family story and creation tale, albeit one in which the details of Guam’s ecological and cultural degradation, American militarism and capitalism, and the diaspora of the Chamorro people and language continue to play an important part.”
—Publishers Weekly


“Over the past decade, Craig Santos Perez has engaged in a relentless poetic exploration of the history, geography, people, and political implications of his native Guam in a series of books he calls "from incorporated territory." This fourth installment moves beyond verbal means, adding maps, typographical experiments, a glossary, and visual art, pushing at our notions of what qualifies as a text and as a border ("wheredoislandsbeginandend" he asks). Perez continues to speak out as an imperative voice from and for a largely unacknowledged part of the American empire.”
—Craig Morgan Teicher


“In his latest book, Perez explores his fears as a parent raising a child in an era of climate change and militarization in the Pacific. But he’s also hopeful that being raised in Hawaii will teach her about indigenous rights, environmentalism and the demilitarization movement.”
—Courtney Teague, Honolulu Civil Beat


“In “(the birth of Guåhan),” there is a charged insistence in the repetition of the phrase: “Guam” is now named “Guåhan,” which translates as [we] have. This insistence engages with the plasticity of sound as well as meaning. As the prose poem develops, the juxtaposition of historical facts about Guåhan against Juan Malo’s faux-playful tone works to keep the reader unsettled while simultaneously informing them and keeping them close. One feels the political tug-of-war reflected in Guåhan’s history played out via this poetic insistence.”—Jose Angel Araguz, The Friday Review


“I wanted to highlight this collection because we here in Minnesota are geographically so far from Guam, and from being an island, but where we live is also occupied territory. We are on Dakota and Ojibwe lands, specifically, and indigenous land in general in the United States and its "territories." Guam is the site of intergenerational, relentless, and toxic military occupation committed by the United States. Too many — most — Americans look away from what U.S. militarism costs people of color and indigenous people within imperial borders.”
—Sun Yung Shin, MPR News


“In from unincorporated territory [lukao], the fourth installment of his multivolume epic from unincorporated territory, Craig Santos Perez creates a personal document of witness, shelter, history, and hope. Continuing to deliver the insights into Chamorro experience and U.S. colonial power that define this ten-year project, from unincorporated territory [lukao] stands apart in its tenderness.”
—Emily Wolahan, Boston Review

From the Publisher