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).