Description
Poetry. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. MOSAIC OF THE DARK is a portrayal of one woman's journey to wholeness and addresses the psychological harm that can arise from restrictive societal expectations for women. As the speaker in these poems examines her own early experiences as a closeted lesbian trying to fit her life into the prescribed script of heterosexuality, she grapples with her mother's possibly non-heterosexual orientation and eventual death from alcoholism. In the end, the speaker successfully sheds familial and cultural expectations in favor of her true self and, in the process, experiences a spiritual re-visioning that allows her to move beyond the confines of a male-centered Christianity to a more expansive, mystical way of experiencing the divine.
Author Bio
Lisa Dordal holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Fine Arts (in poetry), both from Vanderbilt University, and she currently teaches in the English Department at Vanderbilt. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Robert Watson Literary Prize. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, including Best New Poets 2015, Cave Wall, CALYX, Vinyl Poetry, The Greensboro Review, Nimrod, Sojourners, and The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion.
Author City: NASHVILLE, TN USA