Anna Yin, Inhaling the Silence: Poems (Mosaic Press, 2013).
Hannah Arendt,
in her classic tome of political philosophy, The Human Condition, highlighted, in an acute way, how the West had
given itself to a driven and hyper active existence (vita activa). Arendt rightly noted, that in doing so, we have lost
the ability to heed, hear or, in Ann Yin’s recent poetic missive, Inhale the Silence. The erratic
franticness of the West means that the vita
contemplativa is often missing as a means of seeing and being. Anna Yin, to
her challenging credit, has called, like Arendt, those who read her poetry to a
more contemplative, meditative way of being. What is absorbed and internalized
when the portals of silence are opened and the ancient message from such a
place is inhaled?
Inhaling the Silence is divided into two illuminating sections: ‘Night
Songs’ and ‘This Blue Planet’. ‘Night Songs’ has a definite soft romantic tone
and texture—much is seen and felt, reported and recorded in allusive and
illusive ways. The tender ambiguities of relationships between people and
between the poet and nature are warmly and evocatively recounted and recorded.
The listening and longing heart cannot be missed in many of the suggestive
poems. The quiet hunger for a deeper unity of soul with soul, soul with nature,
body to body cannot be missed. The larger vision from which Yin sees from is
compactly summarized in “In the Mind of the Tao”. The songs of the night
whisper hints of unrealized possibilities that yearn for more. The poet is more
than aware, though, that such longings can, at times, seem to walk away from
the hard realities of the human journey or go to places that can do harm and
hurt to body and soul—“Talking to Frida Kahlo”, “A Christmas Wish—for Leonard
Cohen” and “For Irving Layton” address such timeless and timely dilemmas. “Purple
and Gold—In Memory of P.K. Page” sings hope and healing. Many of the poems in
“Night Songs” light but do not land long on that which can be touched in the
night season if there is but the inner silence to inhale deeply from such a
sacred centre and place. The merging of
Oriental East and Occidental West is woven together on a delicate tapestry in
“Night Songs” that cannot but charm and welcome the reader.
‘This Blue
Planet’ is a fitting companion to ‘Night Songs’. The inner longings of ‘Night Songs’
give way to the dawn and day of ‘This Blue Planet’. There are cycles and
seasons, and many of the poems in section two are more engaged with the painful
human journey and the multiple injustices that exist on this blue planet. The
sights seen and not flinched from are told in a telling and graphic manner. Poems
such as “Visiting North Korea”, “Trip to Cuba”, “Visiting Ground Zero (2009)”,
“Seeds of a Bailout” and “The Preference” journey into the painful places. “Why
then do we not despair?—Anna Akhmatova” and “Finding Milton” point to paths
through the dark and tragic places on the landscape. The fact that Anna has
entered the painful political terrain in ‘The Blue Planet’ does mean that there
is fullness in her emerging poetic vision that is most enticing and
attractive—the best poets deal with the complex inner and outer journey and
do so in probing and integrative ways—Anna Yin has done this and she is finer
poet for living such a vocation.
Much is heard
and spoken in Inhaling the Silence that
is worthy of plenty of rereads. Anna has a receptive and meditative soul and
what she has inhaled in the silence, she generously breaths back in life giving
speech—this poetic missive is oxygen for the soul in an age when the
contemplative approach to life is desperately needed as a corrective the
addictive hyper-activism of many in the west in which many see but see little.
Ron Dart