Poetry Connection: Connecting with Local Poets in Goleta, CA

Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate 

David Starkey, Cie Gumucio
Anna Mathews, Daniel Thomas, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, and Dylan Farrell

In a case of IYKYK, then you know that the Goleta Valley Poetry Series is one of the best kept secrets in our local poetry scene. Poet Laureate Emeritus, David Starkey, runs the series twice a year. He pairs seasoned and youth poets, with the help of Cie Gumucio who is the Santa Barbara County Coordinator and Poet Teacher with Cal Poets in the Schools. Starkey says he adopted the idea from a New England poetry series, The Liar’s Bench. This month’s Goleta Valley edition was outstanding. Perhaps knowing that the series might be put on hold due to the library’s upcoming renovation made each reader stand out for me. There was something special l about each of the poets. The librarian’s are committed to the poetry series and just might come up with a creative way to keep it going throughout the renovation. Let’s hope they come up with a solution to keep the biannual series going. Meanwhile, if you want to write more poetry in the new year, sign up for David Starkey’s Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop at the Central Library next month on Sunday, January 12. 

The line-up included Dos Pueblos High School student and 2023 Poetry Out Loud Regional winner, Anna Mathews (you may recall Anna Mathews from previous columns), 6^th Grader at Mountain View Elementary, Dylan Farrell, Daniel Thomas, and Professor Emerita Shirley Geok-lin Lim, who merits her own write-up, look for more in a future poetry connection column. A proud Goleta resident, the UCSB Professor Emeritus said she was happy to be presenting at her local branch.

Anna Mathews is a poet to watch. As a Poetry Out Loud Regional winner, she knows how to deliver a poem, even offers some hand choreography. Her powerful poems linger in the ear and heart. Dylan Farrell, age 12, opened the reading series. He said it was his first poetry reading. However, he seemed so at ease at the podium, you would think he was a much older, seasoned poet. 

Nightmare 

written by Dylan Farrell

6th Grade , Mountain View Elementary

Nightmare 

Tonight in the darkness, an image struck me

a land where love is a dream and hate is a dark reality where you find

strength in pain and beauty in death

when I arose from my slumber I vowed not to let this dark illusion become

a reality

yet my wounded heart fell

so I looked out the window, a portal and I threw my heart out

I projected my thoughts in to the infant void

I screamed my mind to are beautiful country trying in vain to rid my life of

this nightmare

And the void answered back showing me a land of dreams a land where

you can unshackle your chains and set down your burdens

where love is your guide and hate is only a dark thought in the back of

your mind

As I looked through my portal my wounds hurt less and my scars

healed

yet my nightmare remanded It haunted me endlessly so I spoke

“‘I have tried fighting you and I have tried pushing you away so all that's

left to do is to embrace you” and so I did

And I have never stopped

I hold it still to this day and for some strange reason I see things differently

when I see things hurt and tinged with despair

I look back to where we started

I look at a nightmare and I see a dream

Dylan wrote the poem after a presentation and lesson to his 6th-grade class on how poets and politics have intersected over the years by Cie Gumucio. The class discussed Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream speech, Maya Angelou’s poem, Still, I Rise, and they watched and listened to Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb. Cie asked the students to reflect on the inspiring words of each poet and write their own poems about their hopes for the future. 

This week’s poetry connection features a poem by Dylan Farrell and two by Daniel Thomas who is equally at home writing about music and stillness. There’s a spiritual, yin and yang quality to his work. His collection of poems include, Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn (2022) and Deep Pockets (2018). He has an MFA in poetry from Seattle Pacific University, as well as an MA in film and a BA in literature. 

THE FADO SINGER

Daniel Thomas

The word itself contains shadows,

as if the singer stands poised

between the saddened past

and the always fickle future, in a now

lit only by a glaring spotlight

that shines the sequins of her silver

dress and deepens the night sky

hidden in her eyes of black onyx.

Her long arms gesture to the balcony

and her voice trembles through

a languid melody in a minor key,

while three guitars pluck percussive

notes that frame her liquid arcs

like the simple setting of a fine

carnelian stone. Her Portuguese words

grant me liberty to hear only

rhythm and melody and the mouthed and trilled

consonants and vowels that might speak

of lost love, or death beside us

in the dim hall, or the deep sorrow

in these things we live beside. And so

I am transfixed by the origin of drama,

before plot or theme, just

the one life that shines through

her face, stares into darkness, sings

the pure song of her dangling fate.

GREEN PEARLS

Daniel Thomas

When illness stills you, and worry weights

your limbs—when you rub your eyes to wake up

and the rose light of evening slants

across the dusty table—you take a walk,

but the neighborhood is empty—even the birds

have flown, taking with them the furnishings

of sound that make the world inhabitable.

You remember Midwest autumns—how herds

of maple leaves skittered across the blacktop.

Nestled among tree trunks and leafless shrubs,

they found their place of winter rest.

You, too, hurry down the driveway, brittle

as the dried husk of a seed pod. But within you—

green pearls in a frail shell.

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