Robert Anbian

has published three poetry collections, WE Parts
1 & 2 (Night Horn Books 1999), Antinostalgia (Ruddy Duck Press 1992) and Bohemian Airs & Other Kêfs (Night Horn Books, 1982).
His most recent publication is the chapbook, Blame the Powerful: Political Poems (War&Peace Press 2004). His work has appeared in the anthologies, Beyond Lament: Poets of the World Confront the Holocaust (Northwestern) and Practicing Angels: A Contemporary Anthology of San Francisco Bay Area Poetry (Seismograph), and in literary periodicals including City Lights Review, North Coast Literary Review, Left Curve, Oxygen, Oro Madre, Compages, and the electronic journal, Rif/t. From 1978-82, he edited the literary review, Oboe.

He lives and works as a journalist and editor in San Francisco. Of poetry, Anbian once wrote: “What is called into question is not the nature of the subject matter, but the quality of the poet’s act, of the poet’s ability to liberate his or her own capacities for thought and feeling. Poetry simultaneously reveals the mental-ness of all things, and the sensuousness of all minds.”

“Anbian is a raw mixture of poet, preacher, seer, and rebel... generally these poems are unlike anything else on the market. Anbian the angst-catcher, has captured both his subjects and his responses in vision-charged, some times Whitmanesque, direct statements.”
— Choice

“A passionate virtuoso steeped in these times and deep with tradition. His poetry crackles with currency hiply linguistic turns of natural originality, rhythmically brimming with a tem pes tu ous taste of ecstasy, reason, and love.” — Oxygen

“Antinostalgia unflinchingly embraces contradiction. Occurring within stanza, a line, or even a phrase, the contradictions accumulate into a multi-layered and complex struggle.”
— San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Pound said that poets were the antennae of the race. Anbian is a satellite dish.” — Small Press Review

“This man may be a genius or a Venusian.”
—Dusty Dog Reviews