Santa Cruz Poets, Santa Cruz Inspiration: Dion Farquhar

From the published poet, UCSC writing teacher and mother of two, a pair of poems about modern life. Time Off gym drive, GYN drive adjunct faculty union meeting drive dental hygienist best storyteller in town high-on-gas drive School Board protest-budget-cuts-meeting drive Dollar Store Easter basket gee-gaws drive pinched-nerve-in-neck MRI drive Costco rotate tires drive Pain Clinic cortisone shot drive bloody stool dog-to-vet drive swing by Subways-for-dinner drive pick-up orthotics podiatrist drive prescribing psychiatrist monthly check-in drive summer job fingerprinting at county building wait-in-line drive smarmy money-grubbing orthodontist drive Band fundraiser pizza-dinner drive Movie Group on werewolves drive dog food, dog meds, bird seed at box store drive take-in-car-to-mechanic replace ignition coil drive pediatrician cream-for-foot-fungus drive Outdoor World camping equipment list drive optometrist annual drops-in-eyes dark glasses drive college counselor meeting strive drive overpriced periodontist implant drive silent auction charter school drive Saturday teen bowling league drive tae-kwon-do class sit-on-hard-bench-and-read drive summer-job-CPR training drive ukulele club jive drive Friday night Thai take-out drive no public transport no friends no community gun-to-head drive drive Ode to Trade-offs Walk outside to the garbage cans, realize that being mugged while always out of your hands, is one less thing to make you bugged. Not a single soul’s around, your feet crunch loud on the gravel yet you feel safe hands down, savoring the stars from the ground, a sense of well-being untrammeled, life’s good in a gated town. Dion Farquhar was born in 1947, formed by the Sixties, and repudiates nothing. A poet and fiction writer, she chose adjuncting in New York over tenure track in a rural burb, only to be catapulted out of her city by love years later. In 2000, she gave up being bicoastal and now loves Santa Cruz, though she continues to scratch in the post-apocalyptic redwood dust for work. She teaches frosh core at UCSC, writing at San Jose City College, and is an online tutor at Golden Gate University, while relishing life with her partner and their twin teenage sons. She still misses the old country of Manhattan—especially her friends, family and off-off Broadway theater. Recent poems are in New Delta Review, Cricket Online Review, Shampoo, The Southeast Review, Dark Sky Magazine, moria, BlazeVOX, Shifter, etc. Her chapbook Cleaving won first prize at Poets Corner Press in 2007, and her first poetry book Feet First was published in November 2010 by Evening Street Press. Local Poets, Local Inspiration, edited by Robert Sward, appears weekly online and monthly in Santa Cruz Weekly. Selections are by invitation.

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