from unincorporated territory [lukao]

This book was a requirement for a Globality and Literature class. Normally I find that we are made to read literature for such classes more for its commentary on post-colonialism than for its artistic ingenuity. Happily that is not the case with this book!Perez does use an unconventional form in his poetry, unconventional that is, if the only post-WWI poetry you've read was off Hallmark greeting cards. If intentional whitespace, crossed-out paragraphs, excerpts from travel guides, UN testimonies, and legal documents sounds scary, then this might not be your cup of tea. And that's not mentioning that it's actually written in a mix of four languages, English, Spanish, Japanese, and Chamorro (though English is all you really *need* to know).So many post-colonial writers feel the need to beat the reader over the head with their oppression, making sure the reader knows that white European/Americans are the problem. Perez never takes that tone, and is never really accusatory. He mixes in a lot of data, though he does it in a lyrical way that doesn't feel like reading reams of statistics. He paints a beautiful-but-troubling picture of Guam and life in Oceania. He is proud of his heritage, but is quick to point out where his people could have done a better job of protecting their culture.Speaking from a strictly poetical standpoint, Perez really throws all he has at the experimental forms he uses. There are six basic "types" that Perez creates in the book, each approaching things with a unique form, theme, and perspective. Perez rolls through these forms as needed, putting ten poems in a chapter, in a book of five chapters. Many are one page and quite a few go on for longer than that. This is clearly meant to be read as a book, and not as individual poems. However, if you're struggling to connect some of the dots, try reading the book going through one poem-type at a time. This will let you see more clearly how he is using one to build on the next.Perez is pulling in a lot of techniques from Literary Non-fiction in this book, both through the use of the aforementioned outside sources, and through the structure and ordering of the poems he chooses. It could easily be argued that this is actually a book of lyrical non-fiction pushed to the extreme. It sits on a hazy border between the two genres, occupying a place similar to the Chamorros people's hazy nationality.I'm not usually a fan of global literature, but I thoroughly enjoyed what Perez is doing textually in this book. If you're interested in seeing someone push the boundaries of what creative writing is capable of, this is a good place to start.

fantastic book! please read this!

Amazing indigenous poetry. A must-read!

When I first picked up from Unincorporated Territory [Saina] I was in NYC reading it on the subway and every few minutes I just wanted to lean over to the person next to me and say--"hey, read this line, it's amazing" or "hey, isn't this beautiful?" I was so excited by the snapshots of visual imagery, by the emotive links, by the snippets of story (His but somehow speaking to my own space in a global economy, in a world of pasts and futures linked to ancestries lost and recaptured). I had to take the book in little by little so as to keep myself contained as something about it excited my mind so completely. Now I have read it a few times and let it take me back to the 2 books which led to this one, and I can definitely recommend this book to people who: 1) are interested in writing that surprises, experiments, unravels and reravels language(s) 2) are interested in issues of origin, ancestry, vanishing and reconnecting ancestral lineage on cultural, linguistic and personal levels 3) are interested in unusual methods of telling a story and who get excited by an author being able to make you the reader see the world you are in anew because of such methods of telling 4) are interested in reflecting while reading, not just passively absorbing, in being invited into the story/poem/literary space 5) are interested in learning more about Guham, about the Chamorro language, about how significant it is for CSP to reconnect us to that language and 6) are simply looking for an amazingly well-composed book, so attentive to the page, the line, the syllable, the space that separates and connects language(s)/us(es). This is a book that makes me reflect also on the way the world geographically, economically and personally makes, writes over, erases, and remakes history--those of others, but also my own place in that process, even if my place has been to not be aware of it until I opened this book and began to see. What is not to admire?

Great book

Gorgeous and powerful.