Francis DiClemente is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who lives in Syracuse, New York. He is the author of multiple poetry collections, most recently The Truth I Must Invent (Poets’ Choice, 2023), Outward Arrangements: Poems (independently published, 2021), and Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2019).

His writing has also appeared in Chaotic Merge Magazine, the Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly (SFWP Quarterly), Evening Street Review, Bewildering Stories, Narratively, The Millions, Artnet News, Film International, Connotation Press, and Stone Canoe. His full-length stage play, Beyond the Glass, inspired by the Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks, was produced by a regional theater in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2017.

He received a bachelor’s degree in communications/journalism from St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, and earned a master of arts in film and video from American University in Washington, DC. He is employed as a senior producer in the Division of Marketing at Syracuse University. His blog can be found at https://francisdiclemente.com/

Testimonial about the publisher:

I am honored to have my poetry book The Truth I Must Invent published by Poets’ Choice. I have enjoyed working with publisher Akshay Sonthalia to bring the book to life and promote it. I also like the fact that Poets’ Choice is an international company and my work may find its way to readers around the world.

How Poetry Helped Me:

Poetry has helped me to endure life’s difficulties, providing a creative outlet for the turmoil bubbling inside. When I was fifteen years old, my growth stopped, and doctors discovered a tumor on my pituitary gland. The removal of the tumor left me with lifelong hypopituitarism and a youthful appearance—think of a man trapped in boy’s clothing—well into my twenties.

Poetry was my solace and sounding board as I processed my emotions during my youth and early adulthood. But writing poetry is more than a cathartic exercise for me. Poetry forces me to pay attention to my surroundings—to look, listen, and discover material worth noting. Poetry makes life seem more lived (if that makes any sense) because it reframes my perspective—getting me “outside of myself” and heightening my awareness of nature, people, and the beauty of everyday life. And I find ceaseless joy in the exploratory aspect of poetry and in transmitting ideas and images through text (and white space) alone.