Limbic by Peter Scalpello

Peter Scalpello’s debut poetry collection, Limbic, is a darkly glittering journey of queer experience, wild partying, and intimacy – both physical and emotional. Scalpello eloquently and fiercely winds their way through many stories, poetic forms, and human connections, building a collection that is at once a blistering and heart-breaking celebration of living.

Scalpello is a queer poet and sexual health therapist from Glasgow, and their poetry breathes uncompromisingly with the wisdom and deep understanding cultivated through these experiences. This collection speaks with its own, nurtured voice: Scalpello’s language is sharp and searing, their vivid poetic forms leap from the page and arrest the reader’s interest with an immediacy rarely found in a debut. There is a dark humour at play, too, with poems such as Don’t Really Have a Type But Please Be Masculine giving the reader a moment to punctuate their reading with a wry, empathetic laugh.

Limbic dives into bleak themes: addiction, trauma, the toxicity of masculinity, and the stigma around HIV. Scalpello does not shy away from these, instead writing with tender questioning and strong, blunt lines. In Sex and drugs often go hand in hand, they use extensive research into chemsex and chemsex culture to sharply hook the reader’s attention to the poem and topic, and the use of footnotes encourages readers to continue their own intellectual research. This poem exemplifies some of Scalpello’s barest poetics, which often work beautifully to create a dialogue between poetry, research, and experience.

Limbic is a vital debut collection, fizzing with life and living. Scalpello shows their skill as a poet on many levels: technically, emotionally, and narratively – find yourself a copy of this collection: both the words and the poet are worth investing in. 

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Cipher Press, out now, £10.99