[11/10/26] Santamaría, Stella: California Silence

Fence Magazine, paperback

Publication Date: November 10, 2026

Publisher Marketing:

California Silence was selected by Emily Wallis Hughes for the 2026 Ottoline Prize.

An intricate tapestry of urban, natural, elemental, and linguistic worlds, California Silence by Stella Santamaría maps a future beyond the fraught border of language politics between English and Spanish. "The poet said nothing, nada," yet Santamaría invites us into a full and inclusive world, dissolving separation: the "Floricultura Pacific." In her transformative debut collection of poems, Santamaria renders "California" as both a futurist concept and graspable imaginary. Each line in Santamaría's distilled poetry reads like a song through her beams of "glistening sauvignon." This California is bicoastal and international, with the soundscape of Florida unfolding into "neon rind sunsets" through "Cuban banter."