68 pages (32 & 36 pages) // Released March 31st 2021
 
Acting Out and chem & other poems are two remarkable pamphlets joined together in one beautiful collection. Scalpello's voice is brave and intimate, his poetry laden with desire and shame, telling tales of the naked male body and pushing lyricism into strange and fantastic spaces. Intense and meaningful experiences drip from every single line. An unforgettable debut.
 
'These poems wander whole estates of longing, ranging through forms, discarding and inventing, their language blitzed and re-assembled. The confessional voice is sometimes overcome by a chorus, a stream of voices overlapping and coalescing through shared addictions, shared commitments. Honest and unflinching, in Scalpello, we have the wounds, picked and healed, the body shorn of ornamentation, and a striking new voice singing out: 'this precarious / nocturne is all for you'.
- Seán Hewitt
 
'‘Direct and powerful poems, which use the whole of the page to map out the intricacies and fragilities of our bodies and desires.’
- Andrew McMillan
 
Peter Scalpello is a queer poet and sexual health therapist from Glasgow. Their work has been published internationally. Their debut pamphlets were published by Broken Sleep Books in 2021. Their first collection will be published by Cipher Press in 2022. You can follow them on Twitter @p_scalpello.