ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes how poetry is a space to make visible the real and symbolic geographies of Guam and Chamorro culture, identity, genealogy, history, politics, and migrations. The chapter delineates the main characteristics of “Indigenous Pacific Islander geopoetics,” including how this kind of poetry foregrounds the interconnection between geography, poetics, and native Pacific Islander culture. It also highlights the Indigenous histories and significances of island, ocean, and tidal places; honors Pacific geographies as sacred spaces and the dwellings of ancestral spirits; critiques imperial, colonial, tourism, and military geographies; and asserts the power of poetry to advocate, empower, inspire, heal, educate, and decolonize.
