Thursday, April 9, 2026, 6 pm
Chaucer’s (3321 State St.Santa Barbara) hosts Poetry Night featuring Stephanie Barbé Hammer, Rich Ferguson, Kathleen Florence, and Melinda Palacio
Stephanie Barbé Hammer, City Slicker
In this mini-collection of city/country poems in mostly free verse, Stephanie Barbé Hammer runs in and out of sprinklers in a Manhattan playground, picks up a slug by accident in the Cascades, reads about sequoia on 5th avenue, make an uncomfortable journey to the Hôpital américain in Paris, strolls a surprisingly sensual Geneva Switzerland at 2 am, encounters a mountain lion in Anaheim Hills, boards buses and trains In Los Angeles, and attempts repeatedly to make peace with living in rural Washington State, with the spiritual assistance of Eva Gabor.
Stephanie Barbé Hammer is an award winning poet, novelist, and essayist with published work in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Chiron Review, SALT, Spillway, and The RavensPerch. Her new chapbook of lyric, magical realist flash fiction, The Warbler School Chronicles is out with Bamboo Dart Press. A professor emerita of Comparative Literature at UC Riverside, Stephanie lives in Santa Barbara with her husband, political organizer Larry Behrendt. Learn more about her creative writing classes, and other events at http://stephaniebarbehammer.com.
Rich Ferguson, Somewhere a Playground
Somewhere, a Playground is a bold and lyrical meditation on grief and survival in modern America. In a landscape scarred by violence and broken promises, the collection turns wounds into song and uplifts voices of resilience, defiance, and hope. Filled with emotional urgency, it stands as a testament to the human spirit’s refusal to break.
Pushcart-nominated poet Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, and other esteemed artists. He is the author of the poetry collections 8th& Agony, Everything Is Radiant Between the Hates, Somewhere, a Playground, and the novel New Jersey Me. Ferguson is the lead editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat.
Kathleen Florence, Prayers with a Side of Cash
Prayers With a Side of Cash follows a filmmaker’s journey from New York to Los Angeles, reframing the classic American road trip with a series of poems that witness a country in flux. The collection asks what it means to travel not only through space but through the shifting stories that shape us. Part personal pilgrimage and part exploration of American identity, the poems are accompanied by a soundtrack that dares to believe there is hope to be found in the sweetness of life.
Kathleen Florence is a Canadian-born poet, performer, and visual artist whose work moves between page, stage, and screen. Her debut collection Prayers With a Side of Cash was born from a 2024 road trip across America, an odyssey of landscapes, music, and shifting stories. Before moving to Los Angeles, she performed widely in New York, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, and her work has been supported by the Canada Arts Council and an artist residency in Spain. Her live readings are energetic and theatrical, sometimes with musical accompaniment and sometimes featuring surprise guest puppets. More about her at: www.kathleenflorencepoet.com.
Melinda Palacio, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting
Melinda Palacio’s poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, creates images that are at once heartbreaking and humorous. She tackles elemental subjects of family and childhood with the same depth and grace as that of myth making and death. As the only child of a mother who died too young, she infuses her words with longing and life, and celebrates the women who came before her. Each poem offers up the truth in a fearless and unsentimental voice. Palacio’s lyrical language punctuates an unexpected pause to subjects such as domestic violence and her childhood in South Central Los Angeles. How Fire Is A Story, Waiting is divided into four sections: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. In each section Palacio tempers heartbreak, violence, and disappointment with the antidote of humor, beauty, and an appreciation for life.
Melinda Palacio is Santa Barbara’s 10th Poet Laureate. Author of Ocotillo Dreams, her poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, won first prize at the 2013 International Latino Book Awards. In 2015, her work was featured by the Academy of American Poets. Her latest book is Bird Forgiveness.