Anna Yin’s poem: As Much As You Know (in Queen’s Quarterly 2021), here is part of it
From the diary of Anne Frank,
you 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,
you foretell – 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 Queen Anne’s life,
you grasp name as the lost glory,
beheaded by power swings.
The victim, the sinner and the witch …
all in one, darkened the Tower of London.
….
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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