One poem that stuck with me after I read it was Cherríe Moraga’s The Slow Dance, which itself is a part of the larger text: Loving in the War Years. It starts off placing us in the head of our perspective character, presumably Moraga, watching two other people, Elena and Susan, dance. She is envious of the two, describing how they navigate the dance floor and each other’s bodies with ease.
She enters the dance floor, remembering how her mother described how a “real man” holds a woman. Moraga writes, “I am my mother’s lover. The partner she’s been waiting for. I can handle whatever you got hidden. I can provide for you,” (Line 28-29). This highlights this sense of heteronormativity, which is almost explicit in the poem. You are either a provider or you’re not. In simple heteronormative terms, you’re either the man or the woman of the relationship.
She searches for Elena, stating, “I am ready for you now, I want age. Knowledge,” (Line 34), but she finds her still dancing with Susan. Moraga writes, “I am used to being an observer. I am used to not getting what I want. I am used to imagining what it must be like,” (Lines 43-45)
To me, this poem isn’t like a lot of the other ones which we’ve read, which seem to ease in to being about queerness. I read this poem as a kind of sequel to those poems, as it begins explicitly queer but does not end there. Moraga is desperate for, as she puts it, age and knowledge. In terms of Saeed Jones, she wants to know where she goes after she punches a hole to daylight. We see her place herself into regressive heteronormative dynamics in order to cope, and in the end she doesn’t get what she wants. Being openly queer is not treated like a victory, here it is just another reality. Here, the struggle of being queer is ongoing, and not simply something that ends at daylight.
I really like how you framed The Slow Dance as a kind of “sequel” to other poems we’ve read, that’s such an interesting way to think about how Moraga positions queerness. I also appreciated your point about heteronormativity being almost inescapable in the poem, with Moraga inserting herself into those provider/receiver roles as a way of navigating desire.
I really loved your poem and how you connected the meaning of the poem to Jones’ Boy Found Inside a Wolf poem. How you interpreted Moraga watching the two women dancing and feeling envious reminds me of how Saeed Jones imagines himself having the body of a girl and feeling envious of the girls dancing with boys in History, According to Boy. It really is a queer experience common to all of us in which we try to fit into heteronormative narratives.