Anna Yin’s poem: As Much As You Know (in Queen’s Quarterly 2021), then revised as Shades of the Name in Breaking into Blossom. The poem was read at many interviews, such as the Poet Laureate Podcast.
From The Diary of Anne Frank,
I remember few names, but long hiding days,
muffled silence, ghostly shades,
suppressed within walls.
At the age of fifteen, dates abruptly ended –
such a brief witness …
On the journey of Anna Karenina,
I foretell – a name was doomed.
Beauty, brain, and grace could not offset
the hierarchy of a husband’s family name …
Name – a subject to fame
overshadowed saneness.
With Anne Boleyn’s life,
I grasp the name as lost glory,
beheaded by power swings.
The victim, the sinner, and the witch …
all in one, darkened the Tower of London.
Through Anna Akhmatova’s voices,
I catch names exiled into deserts:
desert of despair, desert of cruelty, desert of humanity …
Names were pain, betrayers’ baits,
dictators’ game cards …
name misplaced in her beloved country.
Now I choose “Anna” as my name –
an angel with shadows to shatter.
When darkness shrouds the sky,
I neither pray for God’s mercy,
nor ask for Mary’s grace.
Instead, I seek poetry
as soaring wings.
The Hollow Tree for the 2022 Broadsheet Poetry Contest of the League of Canadian Poets and Self Portrait as Red Pepper in Modern Poetry In Translation (UK)
Anna Yin’ poem into song: Spirit Tree (by James Rolfe). Thanks to George Elliott Clarke’s 5 Poets break into Song project.
Spirit Tree
—after Priscila Uppal
In Prospect Cemetery,
among poplar, cedar and maple trees,
I hope you found yours—
the healing from heaven.
Here in another snowy city,
from my window,
I can see a full-grown willow—
ten years ago, only a tiny twig
someone dropped in the valley.
…. (more)…
Anna Yin’s poem: Monkey King (read it on Rice Paper,2022) | here is part of it
On Halloween night, my stubborn, nostalgic
father clunked out his bashed-up trunk, nodded
to my dragon-signed son. Swiftly, they dressed up
in their favorite costumes and headed for China Town:
a Journey to the West, O Canada, O home for candy.
….
I let the sudden, breaking heavy rain rap and baptize me,
“Treat or Trick”, who should I entreat?
What candied bargain may I strike?
Anna Yin’s poem: Raspberries: reviewed by Cha Magazine (2009)
On our bed
we lie like flatfish.
Outside, stars grow old.
A white cocoon
casts its image on the river.
In sparse shadows
a willow dangles.
Along the thorn fences
raspberries bleed.
They remember
once being the fire
drawing the moth
flapping its wings
to flames.
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