5.

Conyus, “The Great Santa Barbara Oil Disaster, Or a Diary,” http://web.archive.org/web/20160318233605/http://alyoung.org/2015/05/24/the-great-santa-barbara-oil-disaster-or-a-diary-a-poem-by-conyus-reissued/, (accessed 15 May 2021).

The late California Poet Laureate emeritus Al Young posted a blog about different lessons that could be learned from Refugio’s 2015 oil spill. One comes from a reissued poem by Conyus, a member of the prison work crews sent by Union Oil to Santa Barbara’s 1969 oil spill. Besides the evocative imagery of one oil spill still echoing in the present, Conyus’ poem speaks to another, less talked about issue: prison labor. “The Great Santa Barbara Oil Disaster, Or a Diary,” illustrates the unfreedom and injustice that can follow in the wake of massive clean up projects, especially as California uses incarcerated labor for some of the most dangerous and messy ones.

“Platform A, Dos Cuadras offshore oil field, Santa Barbara” by Doc Searls is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.