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The Only Place in the U.S. with Zero COVID Deaths

Terisa Siagatonu is a queer, Indigenous, Sāmoan poet. A Kundiman Fellow, she lives on unceded Ohlone Territory temporarily known as the Bay Area.

About Terisa Siagatonu

Occasion

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

Themes

About this Poem

“I wrote this poem from the place where most of my poems originate: in the urgent, tender truth of what U.S. imperialism, militarism, and colonization have done to my country, my people, and the world’s imaginings of who Sāmoans (and Pacific Islanders) are. This poem speaks to the gap that I usually am standing between—who Sāmoans are and where we come from, and why people, especially those of us residing in the U.S., know virtually nothing about us (or any of the other U.S. territories), even though they should. For instance, during wildfire season in California, American Sāmoa sends their firefighters yearly to help offer relief. The poem ends with lyrics from a Sāmoan hymn that the firefighters were singing together in the California forest in the summer of 2017. Footage of it was captured and circulated by news outlets. I wonder how many people knew.”
—Terisa Siagatonu

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Praise Poem in the Key of Diaspora

Praise the Ocean for teaching me that home is not location as much as it is
belonging where I am wanted

Praise the Ocean for always wanting me
for washing my body in and naming it child

Praise the way the water bites at my ankles
but never breaks the skin

Terisa Siagatonu

2024

Deserving

He runs the gun down my sternum
wrists pressed against my breasts
the ink sharp from the lip of the gun’s hum.
Exhale only when he loosens. Carrie captures
all of this on film. Photos failing to
snap my ancestors guiding his hand
down my chest.

Terisa Siagatonu

2020

Poems

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The Only Place in the U.S. with Zero COVID Deaths

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