Although Lorna Dee Cervantes had completed a book-length collection of poetry while still in her teens, she truly became a public poet when she read her poem, “Refugee Ship,” as part of the guerilla theater group, Theater of the People of San Jose, at the Quinto Festival de los Teatros Chicanos in Mexico City in 1974. That poem addresses a theme prominent in Cervantes first collection, Emplumada—that of the difficulties and complications of belonging to, while feeling estranged from, two cultures. Cervantes identifies as Chicana, born to parents of Mexican and Chumash (Native American) lineage. The poems in Emplumada, including the titular poem, use poetic imagery and form to illuminate issues of poverty, racism, and oppression while celebrating language.

Cervantes built a career in academics, teaching and lecturing from 1985 to the present. Her second collection, From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (1991) was published nine years after the murder of her mother and uses surreal images, stream of consciousness, and a mix of languages to grapple with feminist issues and the continued marginalization of Black and Brown people.

In 2012, Cervantes took part in the Librotraficante Movement, which sought to smuggle books that had been banned from classrooms for what was deemed racially charged content back into Arizona schools.