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National Poetry Month: Alisha Dietzman

About Blog Post Apr 9, 2024 by SCLSNJ Staff
National Poetry Month: Alisha Dietzman   Created by Bob Helmbrecht, collection development librarian Our National Poetry Month poet for today is Alisha Dietzman.  Dietzman's debut collection, "Sweet Movie," was published in 2023 by Beacon Press. From the publisher's description: “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 Dusan 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." The collection was one of the five winners of the 2022 National Poetry Series, a prestigious literary award designed to promote emerging poets, selected by poet Victoria Chang. It is also currently shortlisted for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize 2024. Poet Katie Peterson said of the collection: "Alisha Dietzman is a love poet for the twenty-first century, a fierce, devoted sensualist who feeds on aesthetic experience. . . . ‘Sweet Movie’ [is] a book on the run--from men, from religion, from family, from legacies of violence against women--and it wants you along for the ride. And it's thrilling." You can find some of the poet's work on her website. Read a few of Dietzman's poems, then check out "Sweet Movie" today!
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