Leonard Mahlon Anderson

Leonard Mahlon Anderson (1944-2024) The beloved poet Len Anderson, 79, died peacefully at home on Mattison Lane in Santa Cruz, Tuesday morning, January 30th, 2024, in the loving presence of his wife Elke Maus. Len lived bravely with Alzheimer's for seven years. Len was a kind shepherd and steady force in the Santa Cruz poetry community, co-founding Poetry Santa Cruz in 2000 and Hummingbird Press in 2002, running the high school poetry competitions for many years and printing their anthologies, and bringing countless poet readers to town and books by local poets into print.

Leonard Mahlon Anderson was born July 11, 1944 in Palo Alto and was an altar boy as a child. His mother, Winifred Lulu Ranck, was an avid reader and a progressive Catholic with a free spirit. His father, also Leonard Mahlon Anderson, a salesman for Bethlehem Steel, was a tall, quiet, kind man, like Len. Len grew up in Los Altos and attended St. Francis High School. He went on to major in physics at U.C. Berkeley where he received his Bachelor’s of Science.

Drafted during the Vietnam War, Len became a Conscientious Objector and thereby was able to secure a non-combat service role as a “Senior Assistant Health Service Officer,” stationed in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he served for two years. He was honorably released from selective service in 1970.

Len went on to earn a PhD in physics at U.C. Berkeley, awarded in 1978. During graduate studies, Len worked as a research assistant in experimental elementary particle physics at the Bevatron, Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Len then enjoyed three years of post-graduate work in applied physics at the École Polytechnique outside of Paris where he became fluent in French. Len also assisted with research in particle physics at CERN.

Upon his return to California, at a party in San Francisco on May 1, 1981, Len met Elke Maus, who was immediately impressed by his excellent French. Elke herself was a native German speaker who also knew some French. Elke was taken with Len’s sincere, shy nature; here was a vegetarian who could woo her with a passion for quantum physics. When Len wrote Elke a poem the next day, Elke was smitten, and when he played the blues harmonica, it thrilled her.

As Elke describes Len, “He was a listener. He had humility. I never heard him curse.” Elke and Len married in 1983 and were married for 41years. They settled in West San José.

Len spent 17 years as a scientist in private industry, developing sensors for the automation of paper manufacturing for Measurex in Cupertino before retiring and moving to Santa Cruz.

While still employed, Len joined Waverly Writers, one of the oldest poetry sharing forums in California. Len was also a regular at coffee house open-mics like the Tattler in Willow Glenn. In 1992-93, Len wrote the chapbook-length poem: Beep, A Version of the History of the Personal Computer Rendered in Free Verse in the Manner of Howl by Allen Ginsberg, a hilarious critique of the manic unease and spiritual vacuum of a career in the digital fast lane. The poem can be read here: http://www.bestmindsofmygeneration.com/

After retirement in 1998, longtime friends Dean and Dawn Norris—musicians, gardeners, and devotees of Rudolf Steiner—encouraged Len and Elke to move to Santa Cruz County where Len chose to devote the remainder of his years to his poetry and to the Santa Cruz poetry community. Len became a devoted member of the “Emerald Street Poets” and co-published an anthology with them in 2007, Harvest from the Emerald Orchard: An Anthology of the Emerald Street Poets.

Len’s own full-length collections of poetry, Affection for the Unknowable (2004), Invented by the Night (2011), and The Way Home (2019) were published by Hummingbird Press, and define a unique achievement in American poetry, exploring both the inner and outer universes with humor, passion, and precision. Len won awards for his poetry, including the Dragonfly Press Poetry Competition and the Mary Lonnberg Smith Poetry Award.

As Joe Stroud said of Affection for the Unknowable, the book “might have included a subtitle: News from the Universe, for the poems explore not only the personal world of the poet, but also the world of Quantum Theory and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty, the world of physics and philosophy, ghazals of dark matter and the duende of Flamenco, the spectral lines of hydrogen and our kinship with a redwood tree. Len Anderson’s poems manage this universe with clarity, candor, wit, compassion, and intelligence. This is a book of wonder and marvels. Len Anderson is a poet whose work bridges the Twentieth Century and the New Millennium.”

As a leader in the poetry community for two decades, Len navigated the world of gentle impresario with diligence, patience, and tact, and brought the community into the digital age by creating and managing the comprehensive Poetry Santa Cruz website.

Len became a devoted member of Joe Stroud’s poetry-sharing community, and a regular attendee at Esalen poetry workshops, Great Mother Conferences, and Asilomar weekends with Robert Bly, helping bring Bly to Santa Cruz for readings at the old Attic above the Blue Lagoon. He organized and ran the “Poet-Speak” open-mic reading series with featured reader each Sunday afternoon at the Santa Cruz Public Library for nearly two decades. Len would often perform his own poetry around town, sometimes accompanying himself on conga drums. In later years, Len could often be seen on long walks through Pleasure Point or writing poems at The Abbey coffee house.

Len Anderson was a flamenco dancer, a writer of ghazals, a player of the blues harmonica. He was a passionate agnostic who wed worlds of science and spirit in an unending search for meaning in the gossamer of language. He was a loyal and devoted friend to many. All who knew Len will miss his gentle humility and his kind, tuneful, ever-searching, ever-listening mind.

Len is survived by his wife Elke Maus; a nephew, Michael Anderson and his wife Keli; and four grandnephews and grandnieces, Sidney, Kate, Jack, and Ella, all of Utah. Len’s brother, Glenn Anderson, for many years a journalist and front-page editor for a small newspaper east of Los Angeles, died of Alzheimer’s a decade past.

A memorial for Len Anderson will take place at 1:00 PM on Sunday, July 14th at the Horticultural Center Community Building atop the Cabrillo College campus, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos, CA. Please RSVP here on the MyKeeper website. Email Ken at gyre@cruzio.com with any questions regarding the memorial. Donations in memory of Len Anderson to the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County are welcome at https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/mW7jigp2AJEQ8hTgW9BVkA?t=1710965606