Author: anna yin
Borderless: Translating Across Divides to Foster Dialogue and Harmony (New 2026 Poetry Project updates)
In 2020, I led Poetry in Translation: East Meets West, a seminar series that received excellent feedback from participants and audiences. In 2021, my bilingual anthology Mirrors and Windows, featuring 59 poets translated between Chinese and English, was published by Guernica Editions and recognized by CBC as one of 45 Canadian poetry collections to watch. These projects demonstrated how poetry translation fosters meaningful cross-cultural connections.
Building on this experience, Borderless: Translating Across Divides to Foster Dialogue and Harmony brings together Chinese- and English-speaking poets, translators, and readers to explore how poetry can bridge linguistic and cultural divides. Through collaborative workshops and dialogues, participants will translate and discuss selected poems, gaining deeper insight into each other’s languages, traditions, and perspectives. The project will culminate in a bilingual anthology (digital and/or print) celebrating poetry’s power to connect communities.
The project has received financial support from previous sponsors, including D.C. Reid and Katherine L. Gordon, the League of Canadian Poets, Chen Jie (President, Triple J Tax), and Zelko Odorcic (President, Nova Marketing Group Inc.), with in-kind support from East and West Learning Connections and CPAC.
Drawing on my experience as Ontario Representative for LCP and Mississauga’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, as well as my past collaborations, I have secured participation from over 40 accomplished poets from Canada and China, including Armand Garnet Ruffo, Alice Major, Molly Peacock, Richard Greene, Micheline Maylor, Yvonne Blomer, Rayanne Haines, David Stones, Kyeren Regehr, Lorna Crozier, Kate Rogers, Adam Sol, Bruce Hunter, Bänoo Zan, Yan Li, Yen Ai-Lin, Lo Fu, and Yang Lian. Several participating writers, including Richard Greene, Keith Garebien, Pratap Reddy, Andrea Josic and myself, are based in Mississauga. Together, we will foster dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and collective wisdom across cultures.
Essays published on The Transformation Review:
**** On Translating David Stones’ “Zippers” (Sept, 2026)
***** Translating I Am a Primeval River: Between Current and Voice (June, 2026)
My translations of poems by more than ten Canadian poets mentioned above were published in Epoch Poetry Quarterly (Taiwan) in 2026:
(Notes for Borderless Poetry Translation Project)
We thank our sponsors: Nova Marketing Group, Triple J Canada, Sureway Press, CPAC, EAWLC, The League of Canadian Poets and Canadian poets Katherine L. Gordon and D.C. Reid.
Borderless Poetry Translation: Crossing Languages, Connecting Worlds
Special thanks to the League of Canadian Poets for funding and featuring this as a 60 for 60 event.
We thank our sponsors: Nova Marketing Group, Sureway Press, CPAC, EAWLC, The League of Canadian Poets and Canadian poets Katherine L. Gordon and D.C. Reid.
Memorial: Selected Poems by Yan Li, Edited and Translated by Anna Yin
In recent years, Anna Yin has focused on translating the poetry of Yan Li. His work is uniquely profound, shaped by a strong historical imprint and marked by black humour and layered metaphors that make translation particularly challenging. Yan Li shared over one hundred poems with Anna Yin, from which she translated more than fifty. Seventeen have appeared in leading English-language journals. In November 2024, Anna Yin received written authorization from Yan Li to publish this collection. While she was seeking publishers in North America and the United Kingdom, Yan Li passed away on June 24, 2026.
In his memory, SureWay Press has published this translated collection and now make the eBook available to a wider audience free of charge. We also deposited it with Library and Archives Canada (LAC) for public access to readers and scholars in universities and libraries who are interested in contemporary Chinese poetry.
Congratulations on Breaking into Blossom, a finalist for the 2026 Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry at the Alberta Book Publishing Awards

2026 Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry (Alberta Book Publishing Award)(Finalist)
A Review of Anna Yin’s Breaking into Blossom by Renée m. Sgroi
From Alice Major:
Anna Yin’s poems ‘breathe in two languages,’ creating a lovely tension between immediacy and distance that feels as though two points on a globe have been connected by a flight path. Her imagery is deeply sensual, compelling yet delicate. Her lines hover in our minds like the dream that “finds his own key, unlocks the door and comes inside.”
From Molly Peacock:
In her gorgeous book, Breaking into Blossom, Anna Yin’s poetry is like the interior of the abalone shell she depicts, “emerald… just shining.” Almost anything or anyone in this volume can break unexpectedly into blossom, including the poems themselves, often concluding with unanticipated discoveries. The book undulates with observations and the animated sur-reality of all kinds of exchanges, from an interview with a painter to the poet’s father’s late life words to a desperate woman stepping on a Forget-me-not. “The career of flowers differs from us only in inaudibleness,” Emily Dickinson wrote to her cousins, and Yin’s buoyant inspirations from poets across time, Li Po to Wallace Stevens, Akhmatova to Dickinson herself, give voice to subtly noticed feelings and thoughts. Anna Yin is fast becoming a Canadian treasure.
Susan McMaster for book review on driftwood June 2025 in Chinese & English
Terry McDonagh’s review on Live Encounters Poetry & Writing July 2025
Anna Yin’s “Translating I Am a Primeval River: Between Current and Voice” is featured on The Transformation Review
The editors commented: “Thanks again for this wonderful work. We both found the essay fascinating. We think the translation community will greatly benefit from the insights you have shared.” Click to read the whole essay.
This is also part of my Borderless Poetry Translation project, and Anna will continue working on further translations.
Thanks to Queen’s Quarterly for having Kyeren Regehr interview Anna Yin on The Poet Laureate Podcast
The Poet Laureate Podcast is recorded in studio at Haus of Owl: Creation Labs—many thanks to Haus of Owl: Creation Lab and Queen’s Quarterly. I’m so glad to have been interviewed by Kyeren Regehr for the podcast!

Two great poetry events in person in April and May
Thank you new and old friends come to support this wonderful reading in Victoria, BC on April 25, 2026 . Special thanks to Kyeren Regehr, Planet Earth Poetry and Writers’ union of Canada –Anna Yin



Anna Yin attended Canada journal publication ceremony in Scarborough hosted by Subrata Kumar Das on May 1, 2026. She celebrated Canadian poets’ poems translated in Bengali with Toronto former and current poets laureate: George Elliott Clarke, Anne Michaels, A. F. Moritz, and Lillian Allen. Please feel free to check the Celebration of Bengali and Canadian Literature event on the TV channel.






East Meets West: Explore Haiku with Anna Yin
Celebrate Asian Heritage Month with this free event: East Meets West: Explore Haiku with Anna Yin, write for Mother’s Day & for Mother Earth
Free event—drop in or scan to register.
Date: Friday, May 01, 2026
Time: 2:00pm–3:00pm
Mount Pleasant Branch of Toronto Public Library


Anna Yin had a wonderful trip to Victoria last week. She was interviewed by the multi-talented Kyeren Regehr for the Poet Laureate Podcast, and read at the renowned Planet Earth Poetry alongside Phoebe Wang and rob mclennan at Russell Books.
Anna also visited DC Reid’s home, and enjoyed dinner at Lorna Crozier’s beautiful place. she even wrote a new poem which was shared on both Pancouver and TorontoSpark.














