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.”

The UFQ (the Unidentified Flying Quartet) makes its own magic inspired by the music of Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, and Bobby Hutcherson, with infusions of Brian Eno, the Grateful Dead, and something else. Notes Anbian: “I call the post-fusion, world beat jazz these guys play ‘acid-bop’ – it’s got more possibilities for poetry than the typical verse-chorus cadences of popular music.”