Craig Santos Perez is a CHamoru poet and scholar. (Click photo to learn more.)

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from unincorporated territory [guma’] by Craig Santos Perez (Omnidawn, 2014)
This is the third book in Craig Santos Perez’s ongoing from unincorporated territory poetry series detailing Guåhan’s history, culture, and politics from the perspective of a diasporic CHamoru writer. The following poem, “ginen tidelands [latte stone park] [hagåtña, guåhan],” is dedicated to Perez’s father. It depicts different aspects of CHamoru masculinity, from being drafted during the Vietnam War to enacting different cultural traditions such as carving limestone, braiding rope, and husking coconut. ​

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[for my dad]
~​

The fallen Latte is the sign. It is from within the row of Latte that
we feel our strength. It is the severed capstone that gives us Their
message, “Ti monhayon I che’cho.” We will not rest until the
Latte is whole.

–Cecilia C. T. Perez from “Signs of Being: A Chamoru
Spiritual Journey” (1997)

~

i haligi
a pillar

i tasa
a capstone

i tataotao
a body

~

his hands–
husk coconut–

cooks and
feeds [us]–

stories–this
raised house–

~

at quarry
outline forms

to sing
forward–carve

limestone to
sing past–

~

citizen : drafted
vietnam war–

the rifle
he kept–

his uniform
his fatigue

~

soak coconut
fibers–dry

under sun–
“make rope”

braided hair–
“like this”

~

hålla haligi–
pull sky–

hålla tasa–
“pull, son”

with [our]
entire breath

~

[our] bones :
acho’ latte

removed from–
to museum

of trespass–
to here–

“ginen tidelands [latte stone park] [hagåtña, guåhan]” (p. 14-16) is from from unincorporated territory [guma’] (c) 2014 by Craig Santos Perez. The poem appears with the permission of Omnidawn Publishing. All rights reserved.