Sande Anfang
/artist and poet
Bio
Sandra Anfang is a California poet, teacher, and artist. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Rattle, The New Verse News, The MacGuffin, and Spillway. She’s won many awards, most recently in the Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Contest, The Soul-Making Keats Contest, and the Poets’ Dinner Contest. One of her haiku took second place in the San Francisco International Haiku Contest. Her poetry collections include Looking Glass Heart (Finishing Line Press, 2016), Road Worrier (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Xylem Highway (Main Street Rag, 2019). Kelsay Books has published her chapbook, Finishing School in 2023. Her latest collection is Rara Avis: for the birds, also from Kelsay Books. She’s been nominated for a Best Short Fictions award, Best of the Net, and a Pushcart Prize, as well as for aa AWP-sponsored 2023 George Garrett Award for outstanding community services in literature. Anfang is founder and co-host of the monthly series, Rivertown Poets (established 2013), and a long-time poetry teacher in the schools. She hosts a YouTube channel--Rivertown Poets-which features over 100 recorded poetry readings. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJGhlRyK54dc7M_fn7fs_CA
Sample Poems and Poetry Collections
Small Gods
While filling the seeder I thought I spied
the god of Juncos hiding
in the canthus of my eye.
He winked, made the thumbs-up sign
and disappeared in a copse of maple fire.
The god of Cabbage Moths
tatted a message in pidgin Braille.
I read it through the eyelet of Sandrina leaves.
My life grew huge as the Super Moon’s face
though my verdant supper turned to lace.
I keep my own small gods for times
when fog surrounds my heart or brain
and words die birthing on my tongue.
They comfort me in simple ways
as I weave the fabric of my days.
There's nothing wrong with modest gods
I trust them more than bloated fools
who say, "obey me" from on high
then kick you, broken, from the womb.
I keep my own small gods close by
believe me, they'll believe in you.
© Sandra Anfang 2018
Gary Snyder Will Die Someday
Gary Snyder will die someday
and the world will be a poorer place.
As a tremulous teenager
standing on the precipice of my life,
I smelled danger in every direction.
From him I learned how to ford the riprap
on the roof of my mouth.
Cold Mountain bore its way under my skin
anesthetized my pain.
Everywhere I wandered--
the American's North Fork
Yuba's sanded boulders
Yosemite's emerald pools--
I heard him whistling through a deer bone
whittled in elegance,
scissored legs a blur of flight
in the rear-view mirror of my mind.
Turkeys gabble in the background,
feathers explode like buckshot.
His spoor is everywhere:
tucked in Redwood's knotholes
etched in Lichen's green mandala
muffling Manzanita's murmur.
The breath of rain-doused charcoal
from an abandoned fire
whispers his name
up on Humbug Mountain.
© Sandra Anfang
(from Xylem Highway, 2019, and published in the Marin Poetry Center Anthology)
If you Want to Watch the Perseids
If you want to watch the Perseids
you have to understand the power of night
to ice your bones inside the thin fleece jacket.
If you want to watch the Perseids
you have to find a quiet road away from street lamps
and the moon’s cheesecake grin.
If you want to watch the Perseids
you have to hoard patience like four-leaf clovers
and swallow words you want to speak.
If you want to watch the Perseids
you have to sprawl across the hood of your car
and cock you head at an impossible angle.
If you want to watch the Perseids
you have to soft-focus your eyes
‘til they sweep the village of sky.
If you want to watch the Perseids
you must be willing to be distracted
by the courtship of Great-Horned Owls.
If you want to watch the Perseids
you must risk disappointment
and count your gratitude one star at a time.
© Sandra Anfang 2017
Stuttered Abecedarian on the Death of Poets
--for Q.R. Hand, Al Young, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Richard Sanderell
Another day, another poet
Bites the dust. They fall like
Card houses, the density of bone
Drowned by
Eddies of collective keening.
Far down the block, a
Girl screams into a paper sack
Her cries stuttered
In the chaos of an army copter.
Juries parse the price of prisons while
Kinsmen jam around oil drums
Lighting sticks of solidarity.
My mind is knackered by the
News. Who coined this oxymoron?
On every corner, police
On every corner, police
On every corner, police
Pummeling a brother for unlicensed
Questions. Poets uncork a jug of
Rage. There’s nothing here but deja vu.
Same old
Same old
Same old. Hands up, you’re dead.
Thunder clouds swallow cities’ souls.
Under blue banners, whitewashed waste.
Vestigial suns force themselves to shine.
What have we wrought?
What have we wrought?
What have we wrought?
X marks the spot. Memory tries, fails to snuff itself.
Youth roam the streets, searching for erased fathers.
Zap. Another poet bites the dust. Dust testifies.
@ Sandra Anfang 2021 - Published in The Freedom of New Beginnings Anthology, edited by Phyllis Meshulam
Poetry Collections
Looking Glass Heart, Finishing Line Press, 2016
https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Glass-Heart-Sandra-Anfang/dp/1944899081
Road Worrier: Poems of the Inner and Outer Landscape, Finishing Line Press, 2018
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/road-worrier-poems-of-the-inner-and-outer-landscape-by-sandra-anfang/
Finishing School, Kelsay Books, 2023
https://kelsaybooks.com/products/finishing-school?_pos=1&_sid=d1b864cf5&_ss=r
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apSxJItonj4&t=13s
CD: Poetry + Jazz: A Magical Marriage
Jazz musician and publisher Chuck Sher has created a beautiful album of poems paired with jazz pieces, read by skilled actors and voice artists. https://www.shermusic.com/1883217822.php
Rara Avis: for the birds, Kelsay Books, 2024. https://kelsaybooks.com/products/rara-avis-for-the-birds
also available on
Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Rara-Avis-Birds-Sandra-Anfang/dp/1639806164/
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0kabmzNCM
