The University of Arizona Press
When: Sunday, January 25, 2026
Time: 2-3:30 p.m., PST
Place: Not There Gallery, 437 Ging Ling Way, Los Angeles, CA
Tickets: Free, RSVP here
Join poet author of Chamorrita Song, at the Palabras Literary Salon in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. On Sunday, January 25, at 2 p.m., at Not There Gallery, Williams will speak on the theme of “gospel.” The salon has a guest readers circle, a curated invited list of diverse BIPOC poets, writers, playwrights, and creators to read three minutes of writing to celebrate this salon’s theme. The guest readers circle includes award-winning poets and writers Jen Cheng, Jose Enrique Medina, and others. A light reception is provided. Williams is a Black and Chamorro poet, translator, essayist, and spoken-word artist from Columbia, South Carolina. This event is free and open to the public, but please RSVP.
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.
