To prepare reading for Poetry at the Manor, Windsor’s Poet Laureate Marty Geivais asked us to send him a funny story about ourselves. Although no time to reveal it at the event, I did tell my story to other poets while we chatted at the hotel. and last week got Roger Nash’s email that he now re-read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina… so here is my story:
My name in Chinese, is not Anna Yin. I picked up the name when I was a student at university. It was nice to have a name in English. Mine is after Anna Karenina since I love the novel and the heroine. Friends joked never throw yourself under a train. Well, both Anna have thrown themselves into troubles. If you google the name, you will find at least three. From time to time, I got emails for the Chess Champion who lives in Los Angeles, seemly she is a churchgoer, a lot of church activities, another one, table dancer, various girls or boys’ invitation to sort of parties…a few years ago, I was a little upset, since the first Anna Yin on the google list was the table dancer… but now, aha it is the poet Anna Yin. So who is real Anna Yin? Hard to say, from the quotes of my poems,I will let you decide.
Circling around the same spot,
we become lonely partners.
Our cover-ups make a silent statement:
yours in white, mine in black,
a Chess game.
from “Masquerade Party” (Wings Toward Sunlight, 2011)
Will I stay or leave? 
My skin is thinner,
I battle with the love of sin,
and become sinful.
from “The Sin City” (Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac, 2015)
