Poetry Connection | Connecting with Fellow Poets Laureate at Hollister Ranch

Last week, Santa Barbara’s Poets Laureate received an invitation from Rick and Kathy Sawyer to spend an afternoon reading poetry and enjoying the beauty at Hollister Ranch. I was eager to attend because I know how special the coastline is above Santa Barbara. Hollister Ranch is a working ranch just beyond Gaviota. I’ve passed through the signs and seen the ocean from the vantage of the 101 numerous times over the past two decades on my way back from Solvang, Santa Maria, or beyond. I’ve been hiking in Arroyo Hondo Preserve and enjoyed concerts at El Capitan. The area, with its twists and turns and deep drops to the ocean, makes you feel worlds away from Santa Barbara, even though it’s just a half hour north along the 101 coast. 

The unusual warm temperatures we’ve been having due to El Niño (and global warming) meant that an afternoon in October felt like a summer day in Mexico or Hawai’i. After lunch and reading poems at the Hollister house, I thought I would simply dip my feet in the ocean and then drive home. However, the bubble-bath temperature of the water coaxed me in deeper until I was floating far from the shore with other poets. I want to make a point of swimming in the Pacific Ocean more often. The water was refreshing and soul soothing.

This year’s poets’ retreat at Hollister Ranch was attended by Rick Sawyer, Kathy Sawyer, Jasmin Sawyer, Jessica Teona Schley, Steve Beisner, George Yatchisin, Chryss Yost, Paul Willis, Sharon Willis, David Starkey, and, of course, myself.  It’s been a great week for hearing poetry and enjoying the company of local poets and friends. Except for the Sawyers and Jessica Teona Schley, everyone in attendance was also at George’s recent event, Spirits in the Air, Potent Potable Poetry, Halloween Season Edition 2026 at the Good Lion. Spirits in the Air featured 10 readers who read a poem of their own and as well as someone else’s.

Today’s Poetry Connection features two poems: one by Steve Beisner, that Stephanie Barbé Hammer read, and one by Elizabeth Perez. Both Stephanie and Elizabeth were first time attendees and readers at the poetry event dedicated to drinks or potent spirits. 

Second Line

by Steve Beisner

In memory of Everette Maddox

We leaned against the bar,
taking sanctuary in the cool dark,
four of us staring and talking truth and lies
to each others’ faces,
through the sweet alcoholic haze
and the dusty mirror behind the bottles.
Liza Jane ran through the door
in red short pants and her top spillin’ out,
“There’s a second line comin’.”

We poured our drinks into plastic go-cups
from Krewe of Chaos, 2006,
and flowed out to stand on the sidewalk
where the street shivered with bodies and music.
Somebody shouted, “Oh, yeah!”
and we broke free,
chased happy feet down the street
after brass horns, waving white handkerchiefs,
red bandanas, and bar napkins over our heads.
Liza Jane was gettin’ hot.

“Why y’all celebratin’?” yelled the man
with a cheap camera and a Texas accent.
Liza Jane dropped her arms and danced the
shimmy with her bottom and shake it with her top,
so close to Texas that his face got hot,
till his wife pulled his arm to go.
Liza jus’ laughed, “Take a caution,
let your hair down, an’ answer this, Darlin’,
Why y’all not celebratin’?”

Steve Beisner is a computer programmer, a musician, and a writer of fiction and poetry.
He claims that he did not invent the computer, but was there when it happened.
His taste in fiction and poetry reflects the strange beauty of real life.

Ode to Black Licorice

by Elizabeth Pérez

To haters,
it’s more appalling
than the sludge on a great cormorant’s bill
after yet another corporate oil spill.
The avowed despiser’s eyes
dilate in horror at the onyx gloss
of its torqued whips,
a Grimm scenario
of beeswax, gluten, and glycerin,
in addition to glycyrrhizin
—fifty times more saccharine
than the usual sugars therein—
extracted from the roots
of the liquorice plant, black sheep
of the goody-two-shoes legume family.

Since this is an adult taste
like sea urchin tongues
and pungent fennel-seed
-speckled pumpernickel crusts
my kindergartener saves his black jelly beans
for yours truly,
his sweaty palms
turning them into Finnish salmiakki
(ultra-salty candy cousin of the Turkish anise brandy raki)
the salami of sweetmeats
squirted into saxophones, boats, mallets,
herring scalloped
like a cormorant’s soaring wing,
and pirate coinage
emblazoned with pistols,
scimitars, and telescopes.

I’m a fiend for ammonia’s nose-tingling
tang, the sour dark
of mulberry chutney and witchy chicory,
the funk of pickled plums.
Each licorice penguin
is a mermaid in a tuxedo
beckoning my saliva glands
back to our primeval ocean.

The moral of this ode is straightforward:
Everything is not for everyone
so give me your licorice.

Elizabeth Pérez is a Cuban American writer and associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was named a finalist for several literary prizes in 2024 and 2025, including Gunpowder Press’s Alta California Chapbook Prize. Her poem “Independence Night” won the 2025 River Heron Editors’ Prize. Pérez is also the author of two award-winning books on Caribbean and other Afro-Diasporic religions: Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, & the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions (2016) and The Gut: A Black Atlantic Alimentary Tract (2023).

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October 30, 2026 Deadline

Poems on justice sought. The Martin Luther King Jr. Committee of Santa Barbara is proud to present the 2027 Essay and Poetry Awards Program. This annual initiative invites students to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through original essays and poems that reflect his timeless values. The theme for this year’s application is: “It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people.” Send entries to the MLKSB Essay and Poetry Program.

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Events

Tuesday, November 10
Low State Writing Salon. Writing prompts, writing time for the community. 7-9 p.m. at the Blue Owl, 5 West Canon Perdido Street.

Thursday, November 12
The Poetry Zone. 401 State Street, 4 p.m. 

Sunday, November 15
The Poetry Club, Goleta Valley Library. Read a favorite poem or one of your own. 2-3.p.m.

Sunday, November 15
Let’s Chat About Poetry with Laure-Anne Bosselaar. Join local poetry professor and poet laureate emerita Laure-Anne Bosselaar for a reading of favorite poems. 4-5 p.m. at Domecil, 1223 State Street. 

Monday, November 16
Three Counties, Three Poets Laureate: A Poetry Reading, Poets laureate George Yatchisin, Mary Ann McFadden, and Caleb Nichols read at the Central Library’s Faulkner Gallery, 40 East Anapamu Street, 5:30-6:30 p.m.