Meet our Grantee-Partner: University of Guam Press (UOG Press)
Mission: The University of Guam Press advances regional scholarship, develops cultural literacy, and expands accessibility to knowledge about Micronesia by providing high-quality, peer-reviewed publishing services.
University of Guam Press (UOG Press or “the Press”), which operates out of Mañgilao, Guam, is the US territory’s premier publishing house serving to educate the public on the unique history, environment, peoples, cultures, and languages of Guam and the rest of Micronesia. UOG Press was revived in 2015 to center and elevate the voices and stories of the peoples of Micronesia, who have been vastly under-represented in local, regional, and international spaces where books and ideas are shared.
UOG Press fulfills its mission through its three major imprints: Micronesian Area Research Center (MARC) Publications, Taiguini Books, and Proa Publications. These projects and initiatives seek to:
- Center community perspectives
- Teach and preserve Indigenous languages
- Record historical and cultural knowledge and scholarship
- Create opportunities for local authors, artists, and partner organizations to publish their work
- Inspire and inform the future
As peoples rooted in Indigenous practices and oral tradition, poetry has always been a large part of the cultures of Micronesia. Historically, rhythmic languages like poetry, song, and chants have had a strong spiritual and ceremonial significance and served as vehicles for the preservation of language, intergenerational and ancestral bonding, cultural transmission, and showcasing the connection between humans and nature. More recently, contemporary poets and spoken word artists have used poetry as a tool for resistance against colonization, erasure, and climate change, all of which have negatively impacted the CHamoru and other Micronesian peoples throughout the region where UOG Press operates.
UOG Press promotes the importance of poetry to its community by providing writing workshops, poetry readings, and open mic nights free to the public. Much of UOG Press’s programming centers youth on the island, many of whom are facing unique challenges. According to data from Guam’s Medical Examiner’s Office, nearly 60% of the island’s deaths by suicide in the last 10 years involved people 30 years old and younger, with the suicide rate increasing since the COVID-19 pandemic. Research from the National Library of Medicine has correlated the creation of art and/or the observation of creativity with reduced stress and an enhanced mood and emotional state. UOG Press’s poetry workshops, readings, and open mic nights especially targeted to youth have been essential resources for suicide prevention in the community, opening critical spaces for self-expression and release after the pandemic and more recently, after a super typhoon devastated the island in May of 2023.
Youth and staff from Island Girl Power Guam show
off books donated to them by UOG Press.
Photo courtesy of UOG Press.
The Press recently partnered with Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness’s Focus on Life Campaign to distribute free community copies of Dry Nights, a collection of poetry by Pep Borja that explores themes of longing, sensuality, regret, addiction, and suicide. They held reflection workshops and free showings of the Dry Nights short film, a visual adaptation of Borja’s poetry. Staff also created a journal with excerpts from the book and writing prompts centered around the need to breathe and cherish each breath as a space for youth to express themselves creatively. Another partnership with the Guam Department of Education published the first regionally-focused textbooks for local schools, so students can see themselves reflected in the content, and provides training and professional development resources for teachers. The Press also provides the wider community with resources to foster deeper community conversations.
Poetry empowers our youth through cultural literacy and gives them access to local poets and poems that share their unique identities and experiences living in Guam. –Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero, Director of Publishing, University of Guam Press
UOG Press relies on book sales, partnerships, and grants to sustain operations and produce high-quality publications. Obtaining an Equity in Verse grant from the Poetry Foundation allowed famalao'an (CHamoru women) poets to prepare their poetry manuscripts for publication, filling a major void for famalao'an-authored poetry collections in the canon of CHamoru literature. The funds were also used to provide transcription, digitization, and compilation services to an author whose vision loss had prevented her from featuring certain poems in her collection.
The grant also allowed staff to develop marketing and publicity for upcoming poetry book publications, including book launches in Guam and Hawai’i. Staff were able to network with national partners and promote the voices of UOG Press publications in spaces where they have previously been absent.
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