Poetry Connection | Connecting with a New Poet in Town

Now that I’ve lived in Santa Barbara for more than 20 years, I sometimes feel nostalgic about the time I was a newcomer. There’s something special about being the new kid on the block; people are generous with their recommendations of their favorite places. And, overall, everyone feels their own sense of wistful fondness for either their youth in Santa Barbara or early days of discovering the town. It’s why this area is sometimes called paradise. However, one less favorable thing I remember about my first years of living on the Mesa was how hard it was to make new friends. Perhaps it had something to do with how shy I am in my everyday life. Most people don’t believe me when I tell them how shy I am, because as Poet Laureate, I am a public persona. In my private life, the poet in me prefers to be a listener and observer. If that means not always having the last word, or getting a word at all during a busy group conversation or party, I’m happy letting other people have the spotlight. I have plenty of opportunity to talk about myself during my speaking engagements or workshops or in this column.  

Thanks to this column, this week’s poetry selection comes from the mailbag, an emailed submission to poetry@independent.com. Feel free to send in your poetry for possible publication. When I checked on the latest submission, I was pleasantly surprised when I recognized the name, Stephanie Barbé Hammer. Before meeting Stephanie a few months ago, we were Facebook friends. She is a professor emerita from UC Riverside.

As a writer and poet, we share several friends, and I found her online presence witty and charming. I was not surprised to find that she was as dynamic and cheerful in person. She has a glow about her that someone who is living their best life has. Stephanie and her husband, writer Larry Behrendt, moved to Santa Barbara in August 2023 and are both in love with the city. I asked Stephanie what she liked about living here and the first thing she mentioned was living by Mission Creek. “I am surprised and delighted that I live a block away from a creek,” she said. “When I think of cities, creeks feel country like and wild. I love walking up State Street to Alamar, where I can stand and see how the creek is doing; that’s my favorite. It feels like a city, but nature is very present.”

Stephanie mentioned that she had a hard time learning how to read as a child and that the Cat in the Hat books helped her fall in love with words and rhymes. As a child, she loved rhymes and wrote her first poem at age 6. While her poetry no longer rhymes, she is still excited by words: “I don’t write rhyming words anymore, but I feel that kid excitement about writing poems.” One of the things that impressed me was her support of other poets. I was also glad to see her sharing her work during an open mic at the Blue Whale Poetry Series. Enjoy these two poems by Stephanie Barbé Hammer.

On State Street at 8:30 p.m.

by Stephanie Barbé Hammer

We missed the bus
The stop was unfindable
In the dusk almost darkness
So we walked a long way
Til we found one across from
The modern hotel
We sat on a stone bench
Waited as cyclists whizzed by
Talking about cost-of-living prices their lights
Illuminating just a small patch of the road
When the bus came it was filled
With tired people a man slumped
In the front with a garbage bag
A woman got on with one of those
Insignia polo
Shirts that replace the uniform of yester
Year we got off feeling fortunate
Not to be working –
Overhead the sky was dark and
You explained to me the meaning of
A blue moon.

On Bath Street

by Stephanie Barbé Hammer

I love walking on Bath in Santa Barbara
The name sounds like a tub
And I walk along those tree lined streets
Swimming in the sounds of hospital
Construction
–                 How I love this urban noise.
I see on my phone that Ady Barkan just died
Right here at Cottage Hospital.
A lot of people don’t know who he is/was
Or have forgotten the BE A HERO campaign
And his relentless fight for universal
Healthcare a battle he waged from a
Wheelchair as he gradually died from ALS.
Now I walk down Bath and think about
His gentle ferocity, how he took being
Jewish to a higher, communal level
Where everyone was a member of his
Very big mishkan – Hebrew for “tent.”
I want to learn to bathe in activism how
For Ady it was as direct as sliding into
Water.
“Come on in,” he says from beyond
The waves of the humanly visible.
The hospital construction roars, and it sounds just
Like the sea.

Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Originally from Manhattan, Stephanie moved to Southern California in 1986 to teach at the University of California Riverside, where she taught for 30 years. She and her husband, the writer Larry Behrendt, moved to Santa Barbara in August of 2023 and are delightedly exploring the city and its gorgeous environs. Stephanie brought out two books this past year: the novella Journey to Merveilleux City, and the poetry chapbook City Slicker.