A Chamorrita Poet’s Year in Review, 2025
By Arielle Taitano Lowe
In 2025, my Chamorrita poet book tour brought my debut collection Ocean Mother to Los Angeles, New York City, and Tāmaki Makaurau—Auckland, New Zealand. Every stop on tour, I found connections to Chamoru childhood friends, relatives, colleagues. A whole network of Chamorus constellating the globe. An extension of Chamoru kinship and inafa’maolek, I reconnected with and made new friends with fellow poets and educators from Native nations.
In downtown Los Angeles, I co-presented “Write Indigenously” led by Dr. Mary Leauna Christensen, with poets and friends, Kalilinoe Detwiler, Casándra Lopez, and Annie Wenstrup. Our voices joined in the merriment of writers across the nation gathering for the Association for Writers and Writing Programs conference. We read stories passing down our grandmothers’ languages, growing in kinship and continuity between our respective peoples and cultures. Attendees lined up to buy our books. We explored the book fair, met some of our favorite authors, and signed each others’ books. The poetry organization that first brought us together, Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po), amplified our work by creating a space for us to gather, hosting a public reading event at First Draft, where we read to family, friends, readers, and supporters.
At Junior High Los Angeles, a gorgeous art space in Glendale, I read “Cousin-Gang” to an audience of Native women at a special event with NDN Girls Book Club. The event, hosted by founder, executive director, and poet Kinsale Drake, author of The Sky was Once a Dark Blanket: Poems, celebrated native women writers who published their first books. NDN Girls Book Club and their partners, including Quiet Quail Books, among others, gave away free copies of Native-authored books, including Ocean Mother. My childhood best friend Hannah and her husband made the five hour drive from Las Vegas to attend the reading. We laughed with women and allies of Native nations. Hannah and I exchanged stories in the cool evening air and felt gratitude for how far we have come since our preteen days at Jose Rios Middle School in Piti, Guam.
In July, this network of kinship among Chamorus and Indigenous relatives continued in New York City, where I attended “Spirit Lines and Visual Poetics,” the annual mentoring retreat by Indigenous Nations Poets as a returning fellow. I spent the week reuniting with Mary Leaunna, Annie, and Kalilinoe. I danced with Max Early, Boderra Joe, and met new In-Na-Po fellows. Encouraged by Annie, I offered a workshop on poetry performance. I saw poets blossom on stage at multiple venues in the city. Their kåna (power) reverberates through my body to this day. At Poets House, I performed “Trongkon Nunu,” hosted by executive director Rob Arnold, who also happened to be Chamoru. I remain grateful to Rob for his unforgettable Chamoru hospitality.
To my serendipitous delight, in NYC I met with New York University Press editors, who handle the distribution of Ocean Mother across the nation and the world. Over iced tea served in crystal on a little round table in the press director’s office, on a humid afternoon in peak NYC summer heat, I made plans with my editors for touring Ocean Mother globally. In Washington Square, I reunited with my childhood best friend Bartholomew Lujan Perez. Bart and I watched Moulin Rouge on Broadway, excited to see Guam actress Heather Manley on stage. We were left reinvigorated by the Bohemian ideals of freedom, beauty, truth, and love. We reminisced how far we have come since graduating from George Washington High School in Mangilao, Guam.
In November, I rounded out a year of book touring in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa for the World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education (WIPCE). At WIPCE, the largest global gathering for Indigenous education, I marched in the parade of nations with CHamoru studies administrators and educators, including Fu’una Sanz, my mali bestie. Our delegation included educators from the Guam Department of Education’s Faniyakan CHamoru: Guam’s first CHamoru language medium elementary school. Together we marched through Tāmaki Makaurau, neighbored by delegations from Niue and Hawai‘i.
At my poetry and storytelling activation, my community supported me with profound generosity, passing out Guam gifts and baked goods (including guyuria and rosketi), and together we offered a lalai (chant) to session attendees. I was proud to honor these teachers and language warriors in the latest version of “Trongkon Nunu,” which directly praises and recognizes CHamoru language medium education as a vital component of the CHamoru language revitalization movement. To date, Guam’s two CHamoru language medium schools, Guam Department of Education’s Faniyakan CHamoru and Maga’låhen Hurao CHamoru Academy Charter School, along with vital contributions of participating families, are increasing the transmission of our CHamoru language. I remain a humble learner and supporter for ways my writing and my voice can amplify their work. Thanks to my editors from New York University Press, Ocean Mother is now available in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand through Woodslane Books. I am proud to share that Ocean Mother is sold in Tāmaki Makaurau at Unity Books and The Women’s Bookshop.
Importantly, a number of us excited islanders from Micronesia, representing Pohnpei, Marshall Islands, and Guam, gathered at WIPCE to attend a presentation by Davis from Belau on Micronesian literatures in Hawai‘i. An emphasis was placed on the success of the children’s book Mwa Machang: A Chuukese Story translated by Innocenta Sound-Kittu. As a Micronesian collective, we gathered again to see Faniyakan CHamoru present in collaboration with Native Hawaiian cousins on thirty years of immersion school education in Hawai‘i and six years of immersion school education in Guam.
Ruminating on this year, I found myself rereading the essay and commencement speech “The Ocean Within” by CHamoru human rights lawyer and author, Julian Aguon. I first read “The Ocean Within” when I was seventeen years old, a senior in high school, in the year 2011, at a moment of decision-making as a young person charting her future. In the essay, Aguon writes “Growing up in Guam, we constantly hear the word can’t . . . We become fluent in the language of limitation.” Aguon was right. By age seventeen, I already heard this language of limitation. As a budding Chamorrita poet, the language of limitation sounded like: Your writing isn’t good enough. You write like a girl. Guam doesn’t need more writers. In response to the language of limitation, in his essay, Aguon encourages his audience of young people, that indeed while Guam needs more doctors, teachers, farmers, and fisherfolk: “What this island really lacks—what it really, really needs—is more imagination. More dreaming . . . In each of you, there is a whisper that speaks of a special, unduplicated gift that you alone possess and are meant to bring forth into the world. Attend to that whisper.” That day, inspired and tending to that whisper within me, I committed myself to pursuing higher education, all for the purpose of honing my writing.
Today, fourteen years later, I am affirmed now more than ever that writing is my calling, and the world is ready for my words. In his essay, Aguon references Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist, a book I also love and first read in ninth grade in a class taught by Rommel Losinio. A quote from this book carried me into my big leap of faith, five years ago, from Guam to Hawai‘i, during the pandemic to pursue my PhD in English with a focus on Pacific women’s writing and Indigenous studies. That quote is: “No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.” Because I took that brave leap, I found the people, spaces, and support to bring Ocean Mother to life. I am living a life filled with health, peace, and purpose. I like to think that means this was all worth it. Worth the big leap. Worth listening to that whisper. I hope my story can help more young people from Guam believe in themselves, and like Aguon said, to listen to that whisper from our ocean within.
I am honored to continue this work and I am immensely grateful for all the generosity and support I have encountered. Si yu’os ma’åse to everyone that helped me create this gorgeous year of living my dreams.
With love,
Arielle
Arielle Taitano Lowe 