The University of Arizona Press
When: Saturday, January 24, 2026
Time: 8-10 p.m., PST
Place: Junior High, Incorporated, 603 South Brand Blvd, Glendale, CA
Registration: Tickets are $15
Join Poet at the book launch for Chamorrita Song, her debut poetry collection, at Junior High, Inc., in Glendale, California. On Saturday, January 14, doors open at 7:30 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m. Williams is a Black and Chamorro poet, translator, essayist, and spoken-word artist from Columbia, South Carolina. She received her BA in Arts administration from Elon University in 2016 and MFA in poetry from George Mason University in 2021. Tickets for the event are $15.
About the book:
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.
