Unsolicited Press Launch Anthony DiPietro's Collection "Kiss & Release"

PORTLAND, Ore. - Feb. 13, 2024 - PRLog -- A meditation in a rush, kiss & release is driven by the intense voice of an observant, insistent & emotional "I." He's an urban gay man who admits he's here with a date, but you never know how the night will end.

Are you ready for the beats? This book is a party and a romance. It's a lucid dream.

This poetry accuses, brags, confesses, obsesses, panics & promises. It discos, raves & swings. It falls in love during a hookup but gets bored at a four-way. It woos the Zodiac; tries to get its virginity back; invents sex as a religion, mythologizes masculinity & succumbs to its devils; kills a snake to resurrect a lover; goes to see bad performance art; looks for love & finds it everywhere/wherever.

"God, Anthony DiPietro's poetry is good. I'm supposed to write a blurb, and there's a formula for that, but I'm sitting here reading, and I'm electric about what I'm reading. Not intrigued in that academic kind of way, though these poems are certainly well-crafted...This book - these poems - these feelings - are why I love poetry, why I need poetry, why poetry saved my life - and why it's still reminding me how to be alive. Forget the formula. This is me, a reader, praising the poetry gods and angels that this book exists, for me, and for everyone who came before and will come after."

—Bryan Borland, founding publisher of Sibling Rivalry Press

"Anthony DiPietro's kiss & release is a pleasurable, lovable book about love and pleasure. DiPietro's approach to these poems, even to poems of grief and heartache, is endlessly playful, darkhearted, lighthearted, and resplendent with anti-heroic wit and sex that charms and stings. The delight of this text does not diminish its formal and literary acumen. There are references to Baldwin, Flannery O'Connor, Pasolini, Plath, and Marie Howe..."

—Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets

Anthony DiPietro is a gay sex poet and arts administrator originally from Providence, Rhode Island. He has lived throughout New England and in California, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee. A graduate of Brown University with honors in creative writing, he also earned a creative writing MFA at Stony Brook University. Now deputy director of Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, he resides in Worcester, MA. He composed his 2021 chapbook And Walk Through (Seven Kitchens Press) on a typewriter during the pandemic lockdowns. kiss & release is his debut collection. His writing and readings are featured on his website, www.AnthonyWriter.com.

KISS & RELEASE is available on February 13, 2024, as a paperback (128.; 978-1-956692-87-7). Retailers, schools, and libraries can order copies through Ingram. The author is open to speaking with the media, holding readings, and engaging in other author opportunities.