Craig Santos Perez is a member of the Chamorro people of Guåhan/Guam, where he was raised in the municipality of Mongmong-Toto-Maite until his family relocated to California in 1995. His poetry serves partly as a conduit to maintain his connection to Guam and its Indigenous people, and the Chamorro language is woven into his English-language work.
Santos Perez’ published volumes of poetry include the interconnected works from unincorporated territory[hacha] (Hawai´i Dub Machine, 2008), and from unincorporated territory[saina] 2010, from unincorporated territory[guma´] in 2014, from unincorporated territory [lukao] in 2017, and from unincorporated territory [åmot] in 2023, all through Omnidawn. He is also the author of Habitat Threshold (Omnidawn, 2020).
The co-founder of Ala Press, Santos Perez was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry and won the 2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award and a 2015 American Book Award among other honors. from unincorporated territory [åmot] was the winner of the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry. He teaches eco-poetry, Pacific literature, and creative writing at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa, where he is director of the Creative Writing program and an assistant professor of English.