Call This Mutiny

The thrilling latest by Santos Perez (from unincorporated territory [guma’]) gathers previously uncollected poems in a powerhouse package of decolonial Indigenous insight. A Chamoru poet native to Guam, he confronts the ongoing legacies of European settler colonialism and past injustices across Pacific islands to the U.S. mainland and beyond. In the title entry, Santos Perez defiantly addresses Ferdinand Magellan, famous for his circumnavigation of Earth, presenting an alternative, Indigenous perspective on Magellan’s arrival in Guam in 1521: “Call this mutiny,/ we discovered you/ lost and drifting/ in our already named ocean,/ we saved you/ diseased and starving.” Santos Perez frequently remixes inherited colonial forms of poetry, as in the abecedarian poem “ECL (English as a Colonial Language),” which lyrically highlights English’s destructive power to suppress Chamoru culture: “language lost/ mouths muted/ nouns in/ oceanic orature or/ pasifika palates/ quelled.” Balancing lyricism with an appealing political directness, these poems ask penetrating questions: “Can we disarm/ our nation/ if we don’t/ demilitarize/ our imagination?” This rousing and expansive collection points the way toward a more just future. (Sept.)