The first half of The Color that Advances consists of eight poems addressing artists ranging from Gaudi to Warhol. The second half focuses on American painter Thomas Eakins, with eight paintings featured in eight poems. Author Michael Salcman flexes his art history knowledge in this book, but never leaves the reader behind. In these accessible and well-crafted poems, Salcman not only gives us new ways of looking at old paintings, but brings the human drama behind them to the forefront. Whether it’s an elderly JMW Turner having himself strapped to the mast of a ship in order to better witness what a steamboat in a snowstorm looked like, or the heartbreaking truths and questions surrounding the relationship between Eakins and his wife, these poems remind us of the human lives behind great art.

As poet Dick Allen writes in the Foreword to this book, “The sixteen poems in this chapbook, each of them separately and all of them collectively, are true art by a true artist—one who is loyal to the painting and poetry (and medicine) to which he has devoted his excited Renaissance man-in-21st century Baltimore life.”

A sample poem from this title is available here.

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