A01=Danielle P. Williams
Author_Danielle P. Williams
BIPOC poetry
Category=DC
Category=DCF
Chamorro
Chamorro literature
Chamorro poetry
Chamorru
Chamoru
decolonial poetry
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
generational trauma
Guam poetry
Indigenous literature
Indigenous poetry
LGBTQ poetry
Oral tradition poetry
queer poetry
slam poetry
spoken word poetry
Product details
- ISBN 9780816555161
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 178 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 20 Jan 2026
- Publisher: University of Arizona Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
For poet and spoken-word artist Danielle P. Williams, Kantan Chamorrita is more than just the ancient craft of Chamorro folk song. It is also a return and a homecoming. This impromptu style of communal call-and response performance art forms the spokes for Williams’s debut collection.
Rooted in oral tradition, Chamorrita Song pays homage to Black and Chamorro cultures, honoring the artistic expressions that these communities have created to reconcile lifetimes of imposed trauma. Bearing witness to these many narratives, Williams intertwines spoken word poetry and gospel music with Chamorro storytelling, weaving together the nuanced histories of queer, Black, and Indigenous existence and literature.
Here Williams reveals capacious contemporary forms that speak to the future as well as to the past and that further ground lineages in homelands, finding strength and beauty in collective pain and triumph. These poems transform and spread the messages of those long silenced. They act as song and prayer.
Rooted in oral tradition, Chamorrita Song pays homage to Black and Chamorro cultures, honoring the artistic expressions that these communities have created to reconcile lifetimes of imposed trauma. Bearing witness to these many narratives, Williams intertwines spoken word poetry and gospel music with Chamorro storytelling, weaving together the nuanced histories of queer, Black, and Indigenous existence and literature.
Here Williams reveals capacious contemporary forms that speak to the future as well as to the past and that further ground lineages in homelands, finding strength and beauty in collective pain and triumph. These poems transform and spread the messages of those long silenced. They act as song and prayer.
Danielle P. Williams is a Black and Chamorro poet, translator, essayist, and spoken-word artist from Columbia, South Carolina, who believes in the power words have to inspire, educate, and enact change.
