Color Advisory Board
Color Advisory Board, winner of the 2025 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize, will be published by Gunpowder Press in 2026.
Color Advisory Board ruthlessly interrogates mythmaking with vivid precision. The myths of classic cinema, the myths of family history, the myths of femininity, the myths of beauty, the myths of whiteness—all are fair game for explosion in Santamaría’s poems: “when have we let lies / stop us from coloring the world as we like?” I love how she reaches back into that primal fantasy world of Old Hollywood and exposes how these Technicolor illusions still shape the stories we tell about ourselves. How often do we dab a little extra lipstick on the truth, adjust the lighting to make our pasts more palpable? Michele Santamaría knows, and isn’t afraid to go in for the close-up: “To what degree / Are you alive / Because someone / Decided to be / Selfish, not just run / But throw somebody else / down from the walls / While screaming / Not me, not me, not me.”
—Nicky Beer, author of Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes
“To be the emerald of a mallard’s neck, / to be redder than the idea of red, / Technicolor drenched...”
In Color Advisory Board, familial tensions are rendered in captivating language, in lines that resonate with music, emotions. I was struck by the ingenious use of Technicolor film and Rita Hayworth to make visible how racism disfigures individuals, poisons society. Michele Santamaría has deftly distilled history and science into poetry. I will remember the stunning sonnet crown and the powerful poems about raising a son. What an inventive and memorable book.
—Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine
Images by Noelle Rebekah & Michael Myers via Unsplash.