Notes on growing love: Cherríe Moraga’s “If,” a world-making incantation conjuring collective consciousness through Chicana lesbian po(i)esis

Abstract

This essay introduces the embodied ceremonial practices of deep presence and sustained attentiveness as Chicana lesbian poetic devices that shape-shift Chicana lesbian subjectivities, socialities, and simultaneously the violence of colonial capitalist racial heteropatriarchies. My reading of the poem “If” in Carla Trujillo’s rendering of Chicana lesbian desire in Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About, delves into the shape-shifting and time-bending potentiation at the heart of Chicana lesbian poetics. Cherríe Moraga’s “If” generously offers a map that stalls time with the magnificence of sustained attentiveness. The poet’s observations entice the reader with a depth of presence that illuminate the subject, casting life-sustaining reimagined meanings onto otherwise commodified individuated bodies. Moraga’s “If” refracts the meaning of loss, ghostly pasts, and unimaginable futures through embodiment, imbuing a vivid and deep presence capable of casting spells on futures yet to come. The poem posits total immersion in being—ecstasis, that blooms with the transformational potential of the ecstatic. This essay reads the poem “If” in the context of Moraga’s oeuvre as ceremonial world-making incantation conjuring collective consciousness through Chicana lesbian po(i)esis.