Poetry and Music Open Mic & Live in June & July

I have visited sacred places,
knelt before gods,
whispered, prayed—
for peace in my heart,
for peace in this world.

I wander beneath green trees,
birds singing among leaves.
I imagine poets before me implore:
Each poet is a bird—sing, just sing!
But I fear I am no nightingale,
no lark, no thrush.

Still, a song stirs in my heart.
Still, I must chant—
for the joy of being a poet,
for the peace, the power,
the strength of each word.

So now I drum with all my soul,
answering the woodpecker’s beat.

Let the wind carry the rhythm far—
to another forest, another heart.
Let someone pause,
listening—not knowing why—
and feel a stillness take root,
a single note
trembling into harmony.

 We thank our sponsors: Nova Marketing Group, Triple J Canada, Sureway Press, Mississauga Arts Council and Canadian Poets: Katherine L. Gordon & DC Reid.

Peace and Harmony through Poetry and Music Project 2025 updates

Peace and Harmony through Poetry and Music is a cross-disciplinary collaboration uniting poets and musicians to explore language, sound, and cultural expression. Through compositions, performances, and filming, the project weaves poetry and music into a unified experience, fostering cross-cultural dialogue, creative exchange, and a shared vision of peace and harmony.

Poet Anna Yin will lead this project and collaborate with three to four musicians from diverse cultural and musical backgrounds. Please click here to see steps and details.

We are very happy that this project won a Matchmaker Microgrant from MAC in 2025 and we want to thank our sponsors: Nova Marketing Group, Triple J Canada, Sureway Press, Mississauga Arts Council and Canadian Poets: Katherine L. Gordon & DC Reid.

Many thanks—stay with us for what’s next.

Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) Anna Yin & Jovan Shadd on May 28, 2025

Featured poets: Anna Yin & Jovan Shadd
+ Open Mic for poetry in any language
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 2M7
Open Mic Sign-up: 6:30 PM EST
Show 7-10 PM EST
Admission: $10-20 Sliding Scale

Check photos of the reading night. So glad that Richard Greene, Al Moritz and many other poets and friends joined us to read!

Breaking into Blossom is ready for per-ordering! Congratulations

Thanks Frontenac House. Now Breaking into Blossom is ready for pre-ordering… We hope in the coming National Poetry month, you can receive it as a perfect poetry gift!. #books #poetry #publishing

Here is a poet who finds authority in endurance. With a deepening craft, Anna Yin confronts bereavement, repression, displacement, and the complexities of love in poems that are heartfelt and crystalline. –Richard Greene:

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.” —Alice Major

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.

Anna Yin’s more works showcased in USA, Hongkong, Taiwan & Canada

创世纪诗刊选用Anna三首华语新诗: 沉默,风信子,金陵。 proud for their work persisting in 70 years!

From Vancouver for Anna’s two Chinese poems

two poems for Ontario

from hongkong for Anna’s poem: Brueghel’s Two Monkeys… thanks 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine

More of Anna Yin’s translations published in the USA and Canada

Congratulations!  Tupelo Quarterly accepted Anna Yin’s translation : “Thirteen Short Poems to Chew On” from 严力‘s Chinese poems. It is now on the issue of January.
The Prairie Journal published two of Anna Yin’s translations of 木西’s Chinese poems.
Anna Yin’s two other translations of 严力’s Chinese poems (Textbook & Falling) were accepted by Cha: An Asian Literary Journal for En Route.
Anna Yin’s translation of 颜艾琳’s 超級販賣機 will be in Queen’s Quarterly’s summer 2025 issue. Thanks! #poetry #translations

MAC selected Polyphonic celebration for Mississauga’s 50th Anniversary project as 2024 success

“Poet and author Anna Yin used her Matchmaker MicroGrant to produce the ebook Polyphonic celebration for Mississauga’s 50th Anniversary – 2024. This heartfelt, community-engaged work captures the essence of local artists, particularly writers, celebrating Mississauga’s 50th anniversary through poems, stories, paintings, and photos. The ebook can be served as a “yearbook” of 2024, and captures writing in English, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Persian.
The book is written in three parts – the first explores the friendship between Mississauga and its sister city, Kariya, Japan, through poetry, particularly haikus. The second section features interviews with Mississauga community leaders and poetry writing on events that took place in Mississauga in 2024 and prior. Highlights include tributes to long-running Mayor Hazel McCallion and insights into what the future of Mississauga will hold. The final part showcases haikus written by students at Clifford International School in Guangzhou, China, guided by Anna during her 2024 travels. ” — Mississauga Arts Council, Oct 24, 2024

“After Midnight/ 子夜过后” by Katherine L . Gordon, Chinese trans by Anna Yin will be published soon, Congratulations

ISBN/国际书号: 978-1-998911-04-2
Book Design/诗集设计: Anna Yin (星子安娜) Book Cover/封面设计:Oliver Yang(杨鸿)

Poet: Katherine L. Gordon
Translator: Anna Yin

Foreword

After Midnight is a collection of poems that reflect some vibrant years of discovery, observation and experience of what being alive in this vast sea of life really means for each of us, as we seek a place in a huge and complicated universe. Some of it is lonely, some of it so intimately connected with all natural phenomena that we are never truly alone.

We mature into connection:  a moon-beam caught on the path, a leaf before winter in our hand, a rose opening in wonder, a heart that beats with wind and water murmur.  The closer we draw to the miraculous world we are all born into, the more part of cosmic motion we are bound to feel.   It is the only antidote to that anxiety of separation, the only comfort in love gone astray, health disappeared, hope a spark that needs fanning.

All of us fade into other star-fields, our words, art and music may remain, though it may be “after midnight” that they appear to us.
Katherine L. Gordontumultuous year of climate and history, 2024

KATHERINE L. GORDON : MOON PASSION IN THE SHIFT OF EARTH
VIDEO AND MUSIC BY EVAN GORDON
This is a poem for Dylan Thomas Day 2024 which won a price in Italy.
Katherine also won 2024 IL MELETO DI GUIDO GOZZANO poetry contest  the SECOND PRIZE.

美丽的邂逅/Beautiful Encounters from this book was on 《漂木诗刊》

Steven Xu reviewing this book on Live Encounters Poetry and Writings (Feb, 2025)

Katerina Fretwell reviewing this book for Verse Afire ( May, 2025)