Sweet Movie
Poems
Reeks: National Poetry Series
Alisha Dietzman
- **“What
- gives
- us
- the
- right
- to
- listen
- to
- someone
- else’s
- body?”—Alisha
- Dietzman,
- from
- Sweet
- MovieA
- National
- Poetry
- Series
- winner
- selected
- by
- Victoria
- Chang,
- Sweet
- Movie
- confronts
- romantic
- and
- religious
- masochism
- to
- interrogate
- spiritual,
- sexual,
- and
- moral
- agency**Sweet
- Movie’s
- love
- poems
- and
- ekphrasis
- echo
- splintered
- versions
- of
- the
- same
- question:
- how
- do
- we
- navigate
- a
- world
- where
- the
- expectations
- of
- our
- performance—our
- presentation,
- our
- means
- of
- existence—are
- dictated
- by
- the
- viewers
- themselves?Mirroring
- the
- uncertain,
- unstable
- tenor
- of
- Dušan
- Makavejev’s
- controversial
- avant-garde
- film
- Sweet
- Movie
- (1974),
- the
- voices
- in
- Sweet
- Movie
- are
- equal
- parts
- docile,
- feverish,
- and
- violent.
- This
- collection
- reimagines
- a
- feminist
- approach
- to
- religious
- masochism
- to
- explore
- the
- ways
- women
- are
- denied
- agency
- by
- both
- their
- faith
- communities
- and
- by
- outsiders.Dietzman’s
- poems
- move
- through
- locations
- across
- Central
- Europe
- and
- the
- American
- South.
- Each
- new
- landscape
- informs
- the
- next:
- Memphis
- appears
- in
- Berlin
- in
- the
- form
- of
- a
- dead
- deer,
- and
- Southern
- syntax
- haunts
- an
- elegy
- for
- Gustavs
- Klucis.The
- inspired
- poems
- from
- Sweet
- Movie
- use
- film
- and
- art
- to
- break
- open
- seeing.
- What
- results
- are
- deeply
- insightful
- and
- spacious
- poems
- of
- faith,
- displacement,
- and
- love.
- Perpetually
- observant,
- Sweet
- Movie
- guardedly
- but
- desperately
- consumes
- a
- world
- that
- has
- become
- unsettling
- and uncertain.
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