Black is the Softest Color, by Diane Lato

Poetry, chapbook, 44 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

"Black is the Softest Color is a collection of poetry both whiskey and bitten lip, lover known and lover left. Lato does not shy away from shadow. Instead, she rides shotgun to Cruella and splits liquor with ghosts.

She doesn’t just let the reader in—she opens all doors and drawers, invites you to pluck and dig through the layers. She pays visit to old bliss, flirts with nostalgia but doesn’t stay long. Each poem is an Achilles with teeth—a tangled helix of venom and vulnerability."

—Nikki Allen, author of Hotwire

"To read Diane Lato’s work is to experience synesthesia. These are poems you can smell and taste. Poems that can sting you softly, or breathe hot on your neck. I have no doubt that this book has the potential to open up new neural pathways in the brain –– so untravelled are the roads of Lato’s language and imagery. Lato is a poet, yes, but also an architect building new and prismatic worlds in her latest literary feat."

—Megan Falley, author of Drive Here and Devastate Me - Write Bloody Publishing

Diane Lato (she/her) is a French writer, metalhead and pasta lover. In 2020, a disastrous soccer accident followed by a lengthy knee surgery recovery gave her the perfect opportunity to write French-English poetry daily. Her work has appeared in Honeyfire Lit Magazine and two Train River poetry anthologies, and she has self published two bilingual poetry collections during the covid pandemic (late flowers die last and winter/fragments/d’hiver). After adventures in Brazil, London and Seoul, she now resides between Rennes and Paris (France) with her (Polish) husband. More of her work can be found on Instagram @bydianelato. This is her first published chapbook.