Poetry Connection: Closing Out National Poetry Month and Upcoming Poetry Events

There’s been no shortage of great poetry events this year, including Poetry in Parks, which I cohosted with Scott Green, an archaeologist with California State Parks — and which was one of our best in the past three years.

The two-hour program brought an evening of music and poetry. The Ladies Social Strumming Club opened the show, and the Gruntled played at the halfway mark. Poet Stephanie Barbé Hammer and I both played with the Strumming Club and read poetry. Fifteen-year-old Alicia Blanco Bautista of Righetti High School read Poema 20 by Pablo Neruda, followed by Port Hueneme poet Lori Anaya. Interspersed were three more poets laureate: Santa Barbara’s George Yatchisin, Emma Trelles, and West Hollywood Poet Laureate Jen Cheng. 

Earlier this year, the founder of Poetry in Parks, Scott Green, received the Director’s Trailblazing Award from California State Parks for developing this program. Since the Presidio is Santa Barbara’s state park, the program took place at the Presidio Chapel last Friday, April 17. 

Hear more poetry in Camarillo with Laura Mullen at the Camarillo Public Library, Saturday, April 25. Not to be missed is Martín Espada at Campbell Hall, Wednesday, April 29, at 7:30. Martín Espada is a social justice advocate and National Book Award–winning poet. What a treat for our community that this Arts and Lectures event is free.

Poetry month may be coming to a close, but a new opportunity for you to shine and win a poetry prize now begins with The Old Spanish Days Fiesta Poetry Contest, a new competition open to residents of Santa Barbara County. The competition is open to writers in the following age categories — 11 and under, 12-18 years old, 19 and older — with first-place prizes of $100, $200, and $300, respectively. Runners-up will be awarded in each of the three age categories and receive bookstore gift certificates. The deadline for submissions is May 15. The online entry form and a full list of rules and regulations are available here. ¡Viva la poesía! 

One of the largest gatherings of poets this month was at Oak Park, Sunday, April 12, where contributing poets received their copy of A Feast for Santa Barbara: Poets Celebrating Food & Drink, edited by Poet Laureate George Yatchisin and published by Gunpowder Press.

This week’s poems come from three different poets at the anthology’s celebratory picnic: Margaret Lange, Monica Mody, and Gunpowder’s co-editor, prolific author, and Santa Barbara poet laureate emeritus, David Starkey.  

EVERLASTING

by Margaret Lange

The service will be held 
at the Greek Orthodox Church 
at ten thirty she said but it’s on Greek time 
so who knows, it could start at eleven or eleven thirty.

Yet it did start on time.
I didn’t know I needed 
candles, incense, icons, and chanting.
I floated through to the end

when we took our turns 
greeting the family. I touched the hands
of the daughter, looked into her eyes
and said, “It will get easier with time.”

Because it has. Grief recedes,
becomes a dull backdrop 
instead of the glaring red couch in every scene.
With time, shifts occur, colors mute.

We are all travelers with time
constantly ticking off the days
in time, despite it all, 
with all that is, was, and ever will be.

Margaret Lange is a poet, writer, and songwriter from Nipomo, California.

Super Spar

by David Starkey

 That first autumn in Finland I finally felt

what I’d been teaching for so long: the gap
between signified and signifier,
but also the loveliness of language,
the necessity of our inventions.
It was in the grocery store, among the shrink-
wrapped parsakaali and kukkakaali,
cruising down the rows of aamiaismurot
and leivoskeksejä, standing before
the long red slices of lohi on ice.
What’s important, I thought, is not just
the naming, but also what accretes around
the name, the way flesh covers and swells
over the pit of the sweet, purple luumu.

* from David Starkey’s upcoming book, Otis Redding in Tajikistan.

Guest of the Land

by Monica Mody

We’ve lost patience
/time 
to make it from scratch—
not our appetite for the food. 

Hunger for the familiar 
burrows its soft 
head into our shoulders, ridges 
undersides with its unfussy beak. 

It is old like the song 
of paddy fields, 
old like missives 
of the cloud. 

It is keen 
for reverence, not 
just epicurean taste. 

These secrets travel 
with bodies. 

We are seeking the flavor 
of intimacy 
that anchors 
us into a continuing story. 

There is nothing sentimental 
about this eating. 

It is a matter of survival. 

Food exchanges hands 
in Santa Barbara parking lots. 

Food is comfort and mettle, 
measure of 
heritage that does not encumber.

This common language 
passes between us, 
almost absent-minded. 

Nothing else need be said. 

Once home, we scoop 
out the alu gobi and chole 
from plastic containers 
and heat them up. 

Aroma, 
home, 
wafts among us. 

Gujarat is sometimes here, 
or Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab, Bihar. 

Specifics of cuisine 
consecrate us 
back into woven
collective memory. 

With care, each meal 
sates, a guest 
of the land, like us. 

(Published in A Feast for Santa Barbara: Poets Celebrating Food & Drink, ed. George Yatchisin, Gunpowder Press, 2026)

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Poetry Events:

Friday, April 24

Open Mic & Art Gallery/Noche de micrófono abierto y galería de arte. All are welcome at the library’s open mic. Secure your spot at the Central Library, 40 E Anapamu, 6-7:30 pm by April 10. 

Saturday, April 25

Laura Mullen. Acclaimed poet Laura Mullen will provide a special reading at the Camarillo Library, 3-4 pm. 

Wednesday, April 29

An Evening with Martin Espada. An evening with Award-winning poet Martín Espada, UCSB Campbell Hall, 7:30 pm.

Monday, May 11

Santa Barbara Culinary Experience and Poetry Reading. In conjunction with Gunpowder Press and the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, a reading and Q&A at the Black Sheep, 18 E. Cota St., Santa Barbara, 5:30-7 pm. 

Thursday, May 14Textual Integration. An ekphrastic poetry reading for Textual Integration exhibit at Rubenstein Chan Gallery, 7 pm.