Steve Sanfield

Steve Sanfield, an award-winning author, poet, folklorist, and professional storyteller, became the first full-time Storyteller-in-Residence in the United States in 1977 under the sponsorship of the California Arts Council. He is considered to be one of the country's foremost Jewish storytellers, and is the founder and artistic director of the Sierra Storytelling Festival. Sanfield studied under David Monongye, a Hopi religious elder who died in 1982 at the age of 114. He is the first American student of Zen teacher Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the oldest actively-teaching Zen Master at 103 years of age. Called "the master of American haiku" by Michael McClure and “the master of myth, lore, and word-hoard" by Gary Snyder, Sanfield exhibits a strong Zen influence in his poetry, especially in his extremely tight phrasing and fierce skewering wit. His works of poetry include American Zen: By a Guy Who Tried It (1994), No Other Business Here: A Haiku Correspondence with John Brandi (1999),  The Rain Begins Below: Selected Slightly Longer Poems 1961-2005 (2005), and The Perfect Breeze (2010), his most recent collection of “American haiku.” 

Sanfield has been collaborating with musicians since his college days when he would read with various jazz groups at George Wein’s Storyville in Boston. He continued his exploration of poetry and jazz working with small jazz ensembles at the original Troubador in Los Angeles. Since then he has collaborated with accomplished musicians and composers as varied as Terry Riley and Jay Seideman.  Five Seasons: A Concerto for Voice and Musical Instruments is his first collaboration with Paul Humphreys.