The Poet and Patriot Irish Pub

View from the bar at the Poet and Patriot, 2018.

The Poet and Patriot was an Irish pub, pouring its warm Guinness in welcome to locals and immigrants and outcasts of all kinds. Santa Cruz didn’t have a lesbian bar, and many dykes preferred the Poet’s quiet tables to the Blue Lagoon’s disco around the corner. The Poet brandished a unique odor that had taken root under the carpet and never perished.

An early scene in A Circle Outside is set in the Poet and Patriot pub in Santa Cruz. This pub is where I ordered my first legal drink in 1982. I thought that place would be there for me forever, but Covid killed it.