The New Anthology of American Poetry: Vol. III: Postmodernisms 1950-Present

CHERRÍE MORAGA

443 Cherríe Moraga Ø Sometimes there were things to watch— the pinched armor of a vanished cricket, a floating maple leaf. Other days she stared until she was assured when she closed her eyes she’d only see her own vivid blood. She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared pouting from the top of the stairs. And just what was mother doing out back with the field mice? Why, building a palace. Later that night when Thomas rolled over and lurched into her, she would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers for an hour—where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day. 1986 CHERRÍE MORAGA b. 1952 A poet, playwright, and essayist, cherríe moraga has helped found the Chicana literary tradition in the United States. Her poems are at once deeply personal and highly aware of their political and cultural significances. They contribute to the developing body of writing by radical and queer women of color. Early in her career, Moraga succeeded in inserting a strong Chicana voice into a U.S. poetic tradition that had been dominated by white males. She also helped break the silence about lesbian sexuality pervading a traditional Latino culture that generally adhered to heterosexual norms. Moraga’s poems are intensely introspective , exploring feelings of strangeness, exclusion, and frustration, as in “The Slow Dance,” and romantic joy, as in “Poema como Valentín.” Moreover, Moraga has blazed a new path in the discourse of race, class, gender, and sexuality . Her texts thus function as both a moving and revealing inward journey and an effective agent of social change. Ø Cherríe Moraga 444 Moraga was born in Whittier, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother was a Chicana, with indigenous roots, and her father an Anglo. Brought up within her mother’s extended family, she located herself culturally within the Chicana/o community. After receiving her B.A. in Los Angeles and working as a teacher for several years, she moved to San Francisco, where she devoted herself to creative and political writing. Moraga received her M.A. from San Francisco State University and edited, with Gloria Anzaldua, This Bridge Called My Back, a pioneering collection of essays by radical women of color. Moraga went on to publish numerous volumes of poems, essays, plays, and memoirs. She has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and presently teaches creative writing and Chicana/o culture at Stanford. Her work has won numerous awards, including the Before Columbus American Book Award and the Fund for New American Plays Award. She lives in San Francisco with her son. further reading Bridget Kevane and Juanita Heredia. “City of Desire: An Interview with Cherríe Moraga.” In Latina Self-Portraits, ed. Bridget Kevane and Juanita Heredia, 97–108. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. Yvonne Marbro-Bejarano. “Deconstructing the Lesbian Body: Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years.” In Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About, ed. Carla Trujillo, 143–55. Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1991. Cherríe Moraga. The Hungry Woman. Albuquerque: West End Press, 2001. — — — —. The Last Generation: Prose & Poetry. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 1993. — — — —. Loving in the War Years. Expanded edition. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2000. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 2002. Rosemary Weatherston. “An Interview with Cherríe Moraga: Queer Reservations; or, Art, Identity, and Politics in the 1990s.” Queer Frontiers, ed. Joseph A. Boone et al., 64–83. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. The Slow Dance Thinking of Elena, Susan—watching them dance together. The images return to me, hold me, stir me, prompt me to want something. Elena moving Susan around the floor, so in control of the knowledge: how to handle this woman, while I fumble around them. When Elena and I kissed, just once, I forgot and let too much want show, closing my eyes, all the eyes around me seeing me close my eyes. I am a girl wanting so much to kiss a woman. She sees this too, cutting the kiss short. * * * The Slow Dance Ø 445 But not with Susan, Susan’s arm around Elena’s neck. Elena’s body all leaning into the center of her pelvis. This is the way she enters a room, leaning into the...