[photo credit: The Huntington]
Perez, who won the 2023 National Book Award for from unincorporated territory [åmot], holds the prestigious R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Fellowship for 2025–26. The lecture showcases his in-progress monograph, “Pacific Islander Eco-Poetry: Indigenous Knowledge, Environmental Justice, and Climate Change,” under contract with University of Arizona Press.
The Chamoru word “åmot” means “medicine,” and Perez’s award-winning book offers healing for “traumatic wounds linked to colonialism, militarism and environmental injustice in the western Pacific island of Guåhan or Guam.”
Beyond his seven poetry books, Perez co-founded Ala Press, the only U.S. publisher dedicated to Pacific literature, and teaches at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and MiraCosta College.
Mapping the Archives of Pacific Islander Eco-Poetry will run on Wednesday, Dec. 10 at 6 to 7 p.m. at Rothenberg Hall, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108. For more information, call (626) 405-2100 or visit www.huntington.org/event/mapping-archives-pacific-islander-eco-poetry. Ticket prices: Free with reservation.
