{"id":1316,"date":"2018-10-04T13:27:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T17:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=1316"},"modified":"2018-10-04T13:30:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T17:30:50","slug":"on-reconciling-religion-and-queerness-in-mosaic-of-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2018\/10\/04\/on-reconciling-religion-and-queerness-in-mosaic-of-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"On Reconciling Religion and Queerness in Mosaic of the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Eye Is This<\/strong>
\nLisa Dordal<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Twice Now I\u2019ve Dreamed of Birds<\/em>
\nWhat eye is this that rises
\nand falls, sudden flock
\nacross a blue wake, billowing
\nas if body and sky
\nare one. As God becomes
\nthe quarrel, becomes
\nconfusion and descent,
\nfragment of exaltation. This
\neye, this wisp of seeing
\nand being seen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*I have only included \u201c1. Twice Now I\u2019ve Dreamed of Birds\u201d, and not \u201c2. Omniscience, Prayer, Pantheon\u201d, because the second one was not as relevant to what I was writing about.
\n———–<\/p>\n

Some of the things which draw me to Lisa Dordal\u2019s poetry the strongest are her usages of Biblical allusions and references to the Divine. I do not necessarily consider myself a religious person; religion is not something that comes easy to me, and I\u2019ve tried. However, it seems that there is something inherently magnetizing about gems of religious references which are hidden in literature pertaining to matters of identity, particularly about queer identity, because the two, even as concepts, are so often at odds with each other (more by execution than design, but design is certainly not exempt from any blame). Queerness and religion are woven together in Mosaic of the Dark, as they are both fundamental elements of Dordal\u2019s identity and of the events of her life thus far, and \u201c1. Twice Now I\u2019ve Dreamed of Birds\u201d from \u201cWhat Eye is This\u201d (p. 62) caught my eye as invoking both of these.
\nThis poem is a snapshot of the events of a brief dream (whether real or fake is not apparent, but so many of Dordal\u2019s other poems draw on memory and raw experiences that I would expect it to have been an actual dream). It then transitions to God again, and to being seen, themes that have been appearing throughout the book.
\nI had the opportunity to ask Dordal about this, or rather, comment on how important it was to see as someone who has also realized that many of my deep-seated issues with identity and being seen have to do with the Catholic Church\u2019s insistence on queer erasure. From what she said over the course of the evening, it seems she has most definitely been able to reconcile much of that, and she now holds a Masters in Divinity, and through her writing she has been able to find healing and closure.
\nIn this class, through texts such as The Trouble With Normal by Michael Warner, it has been made apparent that standards placed upon queer individuals by the confines of religion are considered \u201cbad\u201d because of their normalcy. Sometimes, though, it is absolutely imperative that queer people reconcile their relationship with religion instead of ignoring their church’s doctrine entirely. In Lisa Dordal’s case, this has provided a sense of peace and a path of study\/career path, and she now writes about it as a way of emphasizing the isolation that she, as a closeted lesbian felt (for many reasons, though \u2013 not solely because of religion, but that no doubt had an impact on her). I think that although Michael Warner may have made excellent points in arguing against the traditional values placed upon queer people by religion, Dordal demonstrates that reconciling one’s relationship with religion, as a queer individual, can be a way of freeing oneself and making oneself seen again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Eye Is This Lisa Dordal 1. Twice Now I\u2019ve Dreamed of Birds What eye is this that rises and falls, sudden flock across a blue wake, billowing as if body and sky are one. As God becomes the quarrel, becomes confusion and descent, fragment of exaltation. This eye, this wisp of seeing and being … Continue reading On Reconciling Religion and Queerness in Mosaic of the Dark<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3897,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3897"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}