“Dancing Trees” by Anna Yin

May 14, 2024

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Dancing Trees” by Anna Yin. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

Dancing Trees

By Anna Yin

—After Rilke, Ashbery, and painters/poets from Ontario Some trees come to me Yes, I say “some trees” They come to me after an art week passing by our gathering in Windsor after last night’s online global poetry reading In a puzzling light, I recognize their familiar figures are insistent Some trees come to me: from ginkgo walks and birdwatch by the Bruce Trail from bright canvases and wide landscape of the Group of Seven from gift bags by attentive bookworms from the Humber River from pages of Walk into the Woods that I randomly open from the Little Wildheart that the wind arranges by chance from the moonlight’s reflection of children’s recitations… to meet my ascended attention this morning with a translation, with a meaning Maybe they are these dancing trees in Algonquin that truly dance as I now can see Maybe I have always dreamed of walking among them to listen to sounds of music Maybe even when I walk alone on snowy days, I can still find — there is no place that does not see you This is good, these are amazing Some trees come to me I say “some trees”, and I portray: you, the poets, the painters, ancestors, fathers, mothers and children… there is no place that does not see you — in dreams and waking, you are a star bright Some trees come to me I walk among them I dance with them Notes: 1, 2, 9 from Ashbery; 7 from Rilke; 3, 5, 6, 8 from Marty Gervais; 4, 11 from Micheline Maylor, 10 from Lynn Tait

Copyright © Anna Yin

Anna Yin was born in China and immigrated to Canada in 1999. She was Mississauga’s Inaugural Poet Laureate (2015-17) and Ontario representative for the League of Canadian Poets (2013-16). She has authored six poetry collections and three books of translations including Mirrors and Windows (Guernica Editions 2021). Anna won the 2005 Ted Plantos Memorial Award, two MARTYs, two scholarships from USA and grants from Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. Her poems/translations have appeared at Queen’s Quarterly, ARC Poetry, New York Times, China Daily, CBC Radio, Literary Review of Canada etc. She read on Parliament Hill, at Austin International Poetry Festival, Edmonton Poetry Festival and universities in China, Canada and USA etc. She has designed and taught Poetry Alive educational programs since 2011 along with her daily IT job. In 2020, she started her own small press: surewaypress.com for her translating, editing and publishing services.

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