Poetry Connection: Connecting with Poets at Hollister Ranch

  

Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate 2023-2025

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 this year because I know how special the coastline is above Santa Barbara. Hollister Ranch is a working ranch miles 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 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 further 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 Hawaii. After lunch and reading poems at Hollister house, I thought I would simply dip my feet in the ocean and then drive home. However, the bubblebath temperature of the water coaxed me deeper into the ocean 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, Melinda Palacio, George Yatchisin, Chryss Yost, Paul Willis, Sharon Willis, and David Starkey. 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 ten readers who read a poem of their own and as well as someone else’s. Today’s poetry connection will feature 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.

*an earlier version of this column was published in the Santa Barbara Independent

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).

Like the River, All Are One

                                                                                         

Like the river, we are all one

     Sometimes, past memories pop into my head, probably like they pop into yours, when you least expect them, memories we thought were lost to time.

     Recently, I walked into the Camaguey Market, which started off a Cuban store in east Mar Vista, on Venice Boulevard, but, for the past twenty-years, has catered to a diverse group of shoppers, Latinos, Anglos, Hindus, and Muslims, because of its broad range of products, from all types of tropical fruits and vegetables, to different meats, and wall filled with colorful spices from around the world. If an Argentino needs a "mate" cup, Camaguey has a variety of choices.

     I hear different dialects of Spanish, from South to Central and North America, the Caribbean, as well as languages from the Middle East and Asia, mixed in with a lot of chatter from USC and UCLA students, who shop on the cheap. Funny how an image or a smell can evoke something we haven’t thought about in years, like after leaving Camaguey, loaded down with fresh bolillos, bananas, avocadoes, eggs, and milk, I was right back in Bangkok, Thailand, a 19-year-old Chicano soldier on a week-long R&R from Vietnam.

     We’d been on an operation in the Central Highlands, a mountainous region of the country, lush, beautiful, and deadly. Many villages in the valleys and mountains had been isolated for generations, each village with its own culture and rules, where words like "Democracy," "Communism," and "Dominoe Theory" meant nothing, as alienated as they were from the politicians in Saigon and Hanoi. Many of the villagers had never laid eyes on a “White” man. By 1967, to protect themselves from foreign invaders, the village sons, Buddhists, had joined the V.C. to fight the Christian outsiders, even the North Vietnamese Army, many of them Catholic, strangers who flooded into the mountains and valleys, were suspect.

     I was glad to be out of the field, even if only for a week. I had made a bold move, if I do say so myself. I had decided to wait eleven months before taking my R & R, figuring when I returned from Bangkok, I’d only have a couple of weeks left on my tour and be on my way home. When I’d told a friend my plan, he’d said, not mincing his words, “That ain’t smart. What if you get zapped? You'll miss out on R&R.”

     Me? I had no doubt I’d still be alive, a childish thought, now that I look back on it.

     When I arrived at our hotel in Bangkok, the elegant, four-star Inter-Continental, I checked into my room, pure luxury. I’d never stayed in a hotel. In fact, I’d never been on a plane before I joined the army. The only time I'd been away from home for an extended stay was camping out with the Boy Scouts and sleeping in pup tents.

     No more than a few minutes after entering my room, I heard a knock at the door. A short man, probably in his early thirties, stood there. He introduced himself as Mr. Dom and handed me his card, offering me a 24-hour chauffeur. Long story short, I “caved in” and hired him, $100 for the week. A few guys I’d met told me I was nuts, until, each night, sloshed from hitting all the clubs in Downtown Bangkok, Mr. Dom was there to drive us back to our hotel.

     He’d pick me up each day at noon and take me on a tour of the city. He hinted, one day, that the James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, was playing downtown. I didn’t want to spend an afternoon in a movie theater, but I could tell he was dying to go, so I went. Hundreds of people waited in long lines to buy tickets, like the opening of the Ten Commandments. Mr. Dom said he had a connection. I handed him some bills, and in a few minutes, a guy was ushering us in through a side door.

     That’s kind of how the week went, Mr. Dom there whenever I needed him, like the time I had a crazy hangover, from a night out, a throbbing headache, messed up stomach, so I told him to take the day off. I needed sleep. Instead, he forced me to shower, dress, and get into his car. He drove me into the jungle. We stopped at an outdoor café. I was dying. He ordered me a bowl of hot broth, steaming, red chiles floating around the top. I drank it up, sweated, but began feeling better. He said I had to see the golden Buddha. He drove me to a religious site where the statue of a fifty-foot golden Buddha stood in the middle of a garden, pilgrims carrying candles in honor of the great teacher.

     Before I knew it, I was in line, a lighted candle, Mr. Dom at my side, and I was joining the pilgrims, on my knees bowing. When we finished, my headache was gone, and I was cured. A miracle, who knows, maybe better than Lourdes. On the way back to the hotel, Mr. Dom called out to a woman walking on one of the busy city streets, the river on the other side. He said, “My friend. Okay I give her ride home.”

     I was game for any new experience. She was probably older than I, in her twenties, young and pretty. She spoke broken English, well enough to have a conversation. Mr. Dom drove her home, to a bamboo house built on stilts above the Chao Phraya River. She invited us inside. Dom parked his car, and made a gesture to me indicating she worked as a prostitute. Once inside the house, the young woman’s mother welcomed us. She prepared the afternoon meal, on something that looked like a hotplate.

     I was following Mr. Dom’s lead, making our way through the crowded house, barely enough room for beds and bits of furniture. The young woman wanted to show me around. She took me into her bedroom, separated from the main room with a curtain, which remained open. She showed me her wardrobe, a closet filled with a large assortment of dresses and shoes. She asked, “You Mexican boy?”

     I said he was. When I told her I was 19, she called me, a "Baby." Her mother invited us to a small table outside on the porch, water and a canoe beneath us. She brought a pot of tea. We ate, talked, and watched the sampans and boats shuttle up and down the river. It was as if we’d known each other all our lives. I could’ve sat there for days it was so peaceful. After our meal, I listened as Mr. Dom and the young woman talked in Thai. Mr. Dom turned to me and asked if I would consider going to the PX and buying food and other supplies for the family. I was confused. I didn’t’ know anything about a PX in Bangkok. Dom assured me he knew where it was, and with my military I.D. I could shop there.

     A half-hour later, he and I were walking through the aisles of a large military department store, the shelves filled with everything American, from televisions to toasters and food. I told Mr. Dom to pick whatever he thought the family needed. When we returned, the old woman was delighted with the bags of groceries and household items we carried inside. For a while, I forgot I was American and they were Thai. We were people, sharing a home-cooked meal, and friendship. Then, I remembered, why I was even here, and my heart sank.

     When I returned to my artillery battery on a mountaintop a half-hour helicopter’s ride outside the town of Tam Ky, my head was still in that simple bamboo home along the Chao Phraya River, and two weeks later, I was back home in Los Angeles, the memory buried deep, only to be mined one day, years later, after a trip to a neighborhood store with the strange name, Camaguey.

The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar

The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar

Written by Sonido Reyes

*Publisher: Versify

*Language: English

*Print length: 384 pages

*ISBN-10: 0063358395

*ISBN-13: 978-0063358393

*Reading age: 13 years and up

2026 Schneider Family Book Awards Honor
MPIBA's Reading the West YA Longlist

From bestselling author Sonido Reyes comes a poignant and searingly honest companion novel to the multi-award-winning The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School, following beloved character Cesar Flores as he comes to terms with his sexuality, his new bipolar diagnosis, and more mistakes than he can count.

Seventeen-year-old Cesar Flores is finally ready to win back his ex-boyfriend. Since breaking up with Jamal in a last-ditch effort to stay in the closet, he’s come out to Mami, his sister, Yami, and their friends, taken his meds faithfully, and gotten his therapist’s blessing to reunite with Jamal.

Everything would be perfect if it weren’t for The Thoughts—the ones that won’t let all his Catholic guilt and internalizations stay buried where he wants them. The louder they become, the more Cesar is once again convinced that he doesn't deserve someone like Jamal—or anyone really.

Cesar can hide a fair amount of shame behind jokes and his “gifted” reputation, but when a manic episode makes his inner turmoil impossible to hide, he’s faced with a stark choice: burn every bridge he has left or, worse—ask for help. But is the mortifying vulnerability of being loved by the people he’s hurt the most a risk he’s willing to take?

Review

"Deeply cathartic." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Offers an accessible and worthwhile peek into what a struggle with serious mental illness looks like for a teen." - Booklist (starred review)

Sonido Reyes is the award-winning and bestselling author of The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School, The Luis Ortega Survival Club, The Broposal, and The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar. They also have contributed short stories to the anthologies Transmogrify! and For the Rest of Us. Sonido writes fiction celebrating queer and Mexican stories in a variety of genres and age categories. He serves as the vice-president of My Galvanized Friend, a nonprofit focused on providing access to and amplifying LGBTQ+ writing, art, and creators. Sonido also co-hosts the podcast Bidi Bidi Book Pod, which celebrates queer and trans BIPOC authors and stories.

Aflredo de Batuc Artist on the Cusp of Dos Culturas

Noted and Notable: A Film About Alfredo de Batuc

Michael Sedano

How many years ago was it that I attended Frank Romero's holiday sale? As I enter Romero's Frogtown studio a nondescript fellow staffs a table holding prints and a ceramic mask that I instantly fall in love with. I buy the ceramic face that resembles the moon and is a distinctive motif created by an artist I know only by name, and his work. A Mexicano with long-time Los Angeles roots, his artistic sensibilility captures abstract figuration in a wholly unique style.

It turns out that nondescript fellow is the artist himself, Alfredo de Batuc. I am happy to have met the artist even though at the time I had no idea of our encounter. Time passes and the more I see of de Batuc's work, the more I look for an opportunity to acquire more.

Michael Sedano models one side of the de Batuc ceramic sculpture in the form of a mask.

Fast forward a few years and I buy "Las Cuatas," a de Batuc serigraph celebrating Día de los Muertos and Self-Help Graphics.  Self-Help Graphics awakened Southern California to DDLM whose numerous events launch holiday sales and exhibitions. The "Las Cuatas" serigraph is a pastiche of the Frida Kahlo painting Las Dos Fridas. The artist invites me to his home to pick up the work, the last copy of the production run. 

Getting to de Batuc's home leads me past a row of timber bamboo--the raw material for making güiros. Happily I take home my print and have permission from the landlord to return and harvest a goodly supply of bamboo.

Moving into the unforeseen future, news reaches me that Alfredo de Batuc is stricken by Guillain-Barré syndrome. De Batuc's condition is perilous. The artist community comes out to raise funds and keeps their colleague in mind with healing thoughts and deeply felt wishes for his complete recovery. 

Now in present time, de Batuc's recovery has been slow and impressive. He is making art again, albeit small pieces owing to the fatigue that sets in quickly, and the effects of recovering from paralysis. 

In a major show of progress, filmmaker Roberto Oregel and Alfredo de Batuc hold a showing of Oregel's film covering de Batuc's artistic accomplishments and his illness. Lejanías y Nostalgia features biographical narrative and interviews with some of Los Angeles' most prominent artists who share their concern and admiration for the fallen artist (link to trailer).

The showing is held at Consulado General de Mexico, across from McArthur park near downtown Los Angeles. The audience of artists and well-wishers welcomes the film enthusiastically. The audience knows we are privileged viewers, owing to the scarcity of showings of Oregel's film. The engaging film's high production values allow it to stand alongside any award-winning documentary. Lejanías y Nostalgia The Art of Alfredo de Batuc needs to be seen.

La Bloga's Michael Sedano does his metiche thing and contacts Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum, urging the museo's film curator to add showings of  Lejanías y Nostalgia The Art of Alfredo de Batuc to the museum's ongoing film series currently showcasing noted European artists like Van Gogh, and fictional English artist Gulley Jimson. 

De Batuc's work, most widely known from his only mural, is puro Los Angeles arte, and the Norton Simon's audience deserves to know this artist. De Batuc's LA City Hall motif will instantly identify the artist as quintessentially El Lay and if there's justice in the world, buyers will empty the artist's storage racks. 

Although the museo is not currently acquiring new work, sharing the film will be a feather in the NSM's cap and evidence of the museum's commitment to high artistic merit and public service. An interesting coincidence, Norton Simon himself experienced  Guillain–Barré syndrome, a compelling parallel between de Batuc and the museum's namesake.

Aida Velasco, Alfredo de Batuc, Roberto Oregel

The Consulado's Aida Velasco interviews the filmmaker and artist to expand on material Oregel's superb script covers, as well as delve into territory not disclosed in film.

Aida Velasco, José Vicente Borjón, Alfredo de Batuc, Roberto Oregel

A delightful moment occurs when Vice Consul José Vicente Borjón tells the audience he's searched the Consulado's files to discover a foto of de Batuc pictured standing at the artist's singular mural in Hollywood of Dolores del Río. De Batuc's delight receiving the gift is palpable.

Thousands, if not millions, of people annually drive past 6529 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90028 and know that mural, but likely do not know the artist's name nor his oeuvre.

José Vicente Borjón, Aida Velasco, Alfredo de Batuc,
noted collector and gallerist Molly Barnes, Roberto Oregel

How I treasured my Las Cuatas print, and my mask. The serigraph was consumed, along with all my works on paper and bronze, by the Eaton Fire. One mask fragment remains, recovered from the ashes.

Chicanarte Moving East from Los Angeles: Pomona's Galeria Yasmin

Pomona, California has a rich history of showcasing Chicana Chicano artists at the DA gallery. More recently, just around the corner from the DA arrives Galeria Yasmín (link). 

Galeria Yasmin, firmly committed to social justice and community, is both a gallery and a law office. Operated by arts educator Yasmin Cardona, the space welcomes not only painters and sculptors, but also poets.

La Bloga-Tuesday was pleased to attend the most recent iteration of the gallery's Third Sunday Open Mic. Here is a portrait gallery of the readers, who identify themselves only by first name. It's an engaging lineup of writers at varying stages of growth; poets with a future, poets with a book, and accomplished performers.

Victor is a young poet reading with confidence.

Juan brings an effigy of the current U.S. president. As
Juan recites his poem he dismembers the piñata-like figure.
There is no candy, just hot air inside the empty vessel.
Art imitates life, que no?

Angel Guerreo is an accomplished performer whose work reflects keen understanding of humanity,
social justice, and human rights.

Julia C. Gaytán is the feature poet. Her debut collection, Ion Love, from publisher
Riot of Roses (link) reflects the poet's mathematical and scientific background. Hers is an
engaging set replete with chemical allusions and a young poet's loves and insights.

The reader and MC is unidentified. 

Galeria Yasmin's Poet-in-Residence Matt Sedillo is a highly accomplished performer and
author of several well-received volumes.

Kimberly Hartman reads with confidence.

La Bloga will undoubtedly attend future events at Galeria Yasmin so look for a profile of the venue in an upcoming La Bloga-Tuesday.

“Luz de octubre / October Light” by Xánath Caraza

“Luz de octubre / October Light” by Xánath Caraza

 

Xanath Caraza

Xanath Caraza

Xanath Caraza

La canasta roja para pan está lista

Las manos de Nila no paran

Hornean felicidad

Hacen flores de papel para el altar

Tejen arcos de cempaxóchiles amarillas

Bordan manteles de mariposas rojas

 

Campanadas suenan a lo lejos

Anuncian que la hora ha llegado

Hay que abrirles la puerta

Ya llegan, ya vienen

 

El humo de copal marca el camino

Ya llegan

Se oyen los pasos de azúcar blanca

Las voces del pasado

Las risas se confunden con las campanadas

Entonan su concierto

Anuncian la llegada

 

El sol se perdió entre las estrellas

Desde las montañas nubladas

Descienden las almas

Ya las veo

 

El pueblo se llena de alegría

Las puertas de madera se abren

Para los seres queridos que regresan esta noche

Tomados de las manos, juntos

Los vivos y las almas

Beben chocolate

Y papel picado

Ya llegan, las almas descienden

 

Tan sólo esta noche

Nila descansa

Viejita de manos grandes

De pasos de azúcar blanca

Cuyas manos no paran

Hornean para las almas

Luz de octubre que revuelve el alma

 

 

Xanath Caraza

Xanath Caraza

October Light

 

The red bread basket is at hand

Nila’s hands do not stop

Bake happiness

Fold paper flowers for the altar

Weave yellow marigold arches

Embroider red butterfly tablecloths

 

Bells ring from afar

Announcing the hour upon us

Open the door

Here they come; they arrive

 

Copal smoke leads the way

Here they come

Their white sugar steps can be heard

Voices from the past

Laughter mixed with bells

Singing their concert

Announcing their arrival

 

The sun is lost among the stars

From the foggy mountains

The souls are descending

I see them

 

The town is full of happiness

The wooden doors are opening

For the loved ones returning tonight

Holding hands, together

Those alive and the souls

Drink hot cocoa

And colorful cut paper

Here they come, descending souls

 

Only tonight

Nila rests

Viejita with large hands

Of white sugar steps

Whose hands never stop

Baking for the souls

October light stirs in my soul

 

“Luz de octubre & October Light” by Xánath Caraza are included in Conjuro (Caraza X., Mammoth Publications, 2012). Translated into the English by the author.

 

Xanath Caraza

Conjuro received Second place in the ‘Best Poetry Book in Spanish’ category of the 2013 International Latino Book Awards.  In 2013 Conjuro also received Honorable mention in the ‘Best First Book in Spanish, Mariposa Award’ category of the 2013 International Latino Book Awards. Conjuro was an award-winning finalist in the 'Fiction: Multicultural' category of the 2013 International Book Awards.

 

Xanath Caraza