Beyong My Knowing( ISBN 0-9739148-0-7)
Iskov’s review:
Anna Yin’s delicate, sensitive and haunting poetry will sweep you off your feet, carry you to exciting, exotic places and land you right in your own backyard. From her carefully crafted Haiku, to her sorrowful, melodic, sweet verses, you will not be able to put this chapbook down, nor will you be able to read these beautiful poems only once. You will want to read them over and over again.
———I.B. Iskov, Founder, The Ontario Poetry Society and Poetry Editor
Jasmine Star Light (ISBN 0-9739100-2-X)
In James Deahl’s recent translation of ancient Chinese poet, Tu Fu’s poem, “Brief Spring,” he writes, “I watch butterflies andraid deep blossoms,/ Watch dragonflies skim the water’s surface.” and though Tu Fu speaks of this activity as “aimless” we realize thatbeneath the surface of such imagery the poet is engaged in important work.What is it then to preserve the history of ephemeral things, but to suggest the presense of the eternal in such studied attentiveness. So too, in the poems of Chinese Canadian poet Anna Yin, wherein dreams, desires, shadows, moonlight,memories find their qualities as interior and eternal in the presence of seen things.Butterflies. Fireflies. Lilies. Dewdrops. Spider webs. Winds. Breezes. Mists. Footprints. Snowflakes. Pinecones. All curve backwards into permanence. We know the quality of love is apprehended in loss. Exile need not lead to alienation. As she writes in her poem, “The Family Tree,”–“I wander this involute city,wish a wilted leaf blown back home.” That curious word “involute” with its double denotation meaning curling backwards and disappearing, and that noun/verb ”wish” remind us that this living poet’s captured moment is contemporary with the centuries old concerns and observations of Tu Fu. Poetry writing is important work. The hand may be a bu
tterfly, but it leaves a permanent record of that which has always concerned us. If we leave a trace of what we are, we honour life.
–John B. Lee, Poet Laureate of the City of Brantford
Farewell to Sunflowers (ISBN 0-9739148-1-5)
Anna Yin is one of the bravest poets I have read. The reason I say that is because she dares to straddle the line between two languages, two very different cultures and strives to find an acceptable service to both. She learns as she works and surprisingly she has achieved success, translating poetry and writing poems with a unique mix of the oriental and occidental. She works through the real events of life in a Western Canadian city using a quiet meditative style.” life there/has no trace of a spring;/I bring it back /and water it with my heart,” I often find bits of poetry in her writing that are like small Chinese miniatures, bits of meditation where her mind makes lovely images around the commonplace. “I halt and listen–/to each thin leaf/and falling dewdrops.” These pieces contribute a soft freshness to the sarcasm of many Canadian and American poets.
— Don Schaeffer
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2007 Update (Copy right by Anna Yin)
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