In Loving in the War Years, Moraga alternates between using prose and poems to tell her story of growing up Chicano and a lesbian. Her alternating between these two forms of writing expresses her acceptance or lack thereof of these identities as well as her comfort expressing herself. This is demonstrated by her using poems to describe her lesbian relationships delving into her emotional connection to women, while using prose to describe her slightly strained relationship between her culture and family.
When she writes about her family and growing up Chicano, she writes in essay form. Very rarely talking about herself in these essays, often talking about her parents, grandmother, or sister, this lack of personal narrative reads as her distancing herself from this part of her identity. Therefore, raising the suspicion that she may not feel as connected to this part of her identity. The perceived disconnect relates to Clare’s narrative in Exile and Pride by explaining how some exiles are self-imposed and not actually due to the person’s sexual identity.
Meanwhile, Moraga writes about her experiences with women and her identity as a lesbian in poem form. The stark contrast between writing about others to actually writing about herself and her emotions about her lesbian experiences reads like a window into her heart and soul. Simultaneously, her poem format of writing about these experiences creates a sense of belonging to this part of her identity. Her poems display the raw emotion that comes with accepting a part of your identity that often times is discarded when suppressing a part of yourself. I believe that Moraga’s use of prose and poems to describe her various identities is used to highlight both how at odds the two identities are with each other and the comfort and connectivity she feels towards each side of herself. However, at its core her disparities between how she writes these two parts of herself is a commentary on her own intersectionality.
I think it’s been really interesting reading about the different “parts” of author’s in their prose and poetry throughout this class. Clare, Moraga, and Saeed Jones all write about the reconciling of their multifaceted identities. I hadn’t thought of how “at odds” Moraga’s identities were before, but it reminds me of Saeed Jones’ “boy” and “woman” identities, or how Clare includes “white” and “lesbian.” All of these writers seem to use language as a way to express, explore, and work through identity, either closing the distance like Clare does, or getting some distance like Saeed Jones. I’m not sure where Moraga falls on this spectrum, but reading your thoughts on how she wrote about “the suppression of the self” and “finding a sense of beloning” it’s clear that she’s using different writing forms to get at that core identity juncture.
This is a really insightful blog on Moraga’s writing style. I like how you picked up on the switch between prose and poetry as a way of showing her comfort vs. discomfort with different parts of her identity. It makes sense that she’d write about her family and culture in a more distant, essay-like way if she’s still working through those connections, especially if there’s tension or pain in the stories of the narrator. I agree that in contrast, her poems about love and her identity as a lesbian feel more intimate and true to who she is. You make a great point about how form reflects emotion and identity here!