Betsu

For those of you who don't know it, I am sort of a poet on Guam. I've had the privilege of reading several times at the Sinangan-Ta events over the past few years. Sadly, I never win the prize at the end of the contest because my poems are always too long.

Here is one of my biggest crowd pleasers, "I am Chamorro," which isn't too long at around two pages long.

Some of my poems sprawl out of control and end up at four or five pages, such as this one, gi entre i mas ya-hu na betsu-hu, "Time Machine Native."

Over the past few years though I've begun writing shorter and shorter poems, mainly in Chamorro, about less explicitly political things such as guinaya yan triniste. You can find most of these on my blog. One of the few "political" Chamorro poems I've written though is titled "kinattayi yu' ni' sindalun Chamorro giya Irak," or "I was written a letter by a Chamorro in Iraq."

Anyways, how does all this relate to Sumahi? Taimanu chumetton este na sinangan-hu yan i hagga-hu?

Well, Jessica took Sumahi to attend the most recent Sinangan-Ta in December of last year, and I think that the love of poetry reading might be in her blood. Check out these pictures.