Abstract
Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of “facultad,” this study of poetry by Laurie Ann Guerrero identifies an emergent “maternal facultad,” a consciousness honed through the bodily and social experiences of mestiza maternity. Guerrero’s poems, “Babies Under the Skin” and “Reconciliation,” reveal how such consciousness is ignited through the mother’s body; her transformed body and subjectivity implicate her in multiple histories and violences of colonization and the medical/birthing industry. This study argues for the need for mothers to continue writing their bodies—to speak the “mess” of the body and of mother-work—creating an epistemically fertile site of knowledge production.
Recommended Citation
Mercado-López, Larissa M.
(2014)
"Laboring Histories: The "Reconciliation" of Maternity in the Poetry of Laurie Ann Guerrero,"
Diálogo: Vol. 17:
No.
2, Article 9.
Available at:
https://via.library.depaul.edu/dialogo/vol17/iss2/9
