An artist, translator, and teacher, Scappettone was born and raised in New York. The recipient of a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2005, she has lived in Italy, Virginia, California, and Chicago. Her collections of poetry are the chapbooks Err-Residence (2007), Beauty (Is the New Absurdity) (2007), and Thing Ode / Ode oggettuale (2008), translated into Italian with Marco Giovenale, as well as the book-length From Dame Quickly (2009).

In her project “Neosuprematist Webtexts” (2008–2009), Scappettone combined filmed stills and fragments of text; selections of the work were included in a show curated by the visual poet Helen White at festivals in Brussels and Ghent. Collagelike practices infuse Scappettone’s From Dame Quickly, which poet Charles Bernstein described as “translation, collage, prose poem, lyric invention, periodic convolute, imploded syntax and discursive veers.”

Scappettone’s poetry has appeared in the anthologies The Best American Poetry 2004, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (2007), Zoland Annual (2008), and others. As a guest editor, Scappettone featured Italian poetry in the journal Aufgabe #7 in 2008. She has translated the work of Amelia Rosselli from the Italian.

Scappettone teaches at the University of Chicago.