THE WRITER WRITING THESE WORDS to you will always have warm regard for Santa Cruz. This place has a government that calculated thousands of dollars of overpaid child support—via the cold-hearted county of Santa Clara—and paid it back to me! My Blanca-Brown Latina ex-wife introduced me to Santa Cruz and—in spite of that—the town continues to bring a smile to my face.

So here comes Aaron Anderson, a student of film and literature studies at UCSC. He is a poet of note, published in journals since 1999—when my first-born son was just a golden brown nine years old. Aaron, his poetry, exudes the spirit of Santa Cruz that takes the chill off inhumane bureaucracy.