Ava Ye
Ava Ye/叶曳 (she/her) is a Chinese writer attending high school in Los Angeles. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and is an alumna of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio. Aside from writing, Ava is often enjoying iced coffee and waiting for the next rainstorm. You can find her on Instagram @avayeye.
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New World Sinfonia
the leaves a yellow past shattered browning everything
asleep but the crows that voyage feathered in monochrome like
an ink bird swallowing strokes of wind a mother spilled
fluid / flowing wisps of fathers the cigarette paper spit-soaked
like the song where an olive tree strayed into a dream that said
don’t ask me where i came from there are ants in the salt jar / a poet a maker
of things ceramic creamers candle dishes counter stools empty
shoe boxes dutch doors the pea pod pendant made of jade
kitchen twine balls of tissue bird cages pomelo peel crampon barrels
the pitter patter of leaving the contour of a thing you should know in vein
a thing like touch how weak is a thing like that? i want to
rest on eyelashes the way raindrops do then grandma won’t see me
break under her syllables softened by longing / loving is a massacre with
distance how a river is a birthmark from above & autumn is but
a bruise
asleep but the crows that voyage feathered in monochrome like
an ink bird swallowing strokes of wind a mother spilled
fluid / flowing wisps of fathers the cigarette paper spit-soaked
like the song where an olive tree strayed into a dream that said
don’t ask me where i came from there are ants in the salt jar / a poet a maker
of things ceramic creamers candle dishes counter stools empty
shoe boxes dutch doors the pea pod pendant made of jade
kitchen twine balls of tissue bird cages pomelo peel crampon barrels
the pitter patter of leaving the contour of a thing you should know in vein
a thing like touch how weak is a thing like that? i want to
rest on eyelashes the way raindrops do then grandma won’t see me
break under her syllables softened by longing / loving is a massacre with
distance how a river is a birthmark from above & autumn is but
a bruise
Commentary
Ava on “New World Sinfonia”:
Along the dry spine of California, there is nothing much outside the car window: road trips are a blur of beige and the smell of farmed manure until you stumble upon a poppy field or an In-N-Out Burger. It was Thanksgiving Day, and I, a first-generation immigrant, was feeling exceptionally American. As I sat in the passenger seat on the way to Solvang, I was shocked by a picturesque autumn in front of the windshield. The landscape reminded me of a Grant Wood painting I had seen in Iowa the summer before, the plaque beneath it describing how Wood chose to depict the humble beauty of the American Midwest rather than scavenging for an unrealistic Renaissance-style scene like many artists in his time.
This half-patriotic, half-nostalgic mood inspired me to relisten to Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, which Dvořák composed shortly after moving to the United States from Bohemia. Filled with Native American hymns and African American folk songs, this iconic orchestral masterpiece is often referred to as the New World Symphony: a nickname I refashioned to be the title for my own poem. Instead of “symphony,” I chose the word “sinfonia,” which is an orchestral prelude to a grander work like an opera or cantata--a foreword, a preface, perhaps a disclaimer.
While New World Symphony was an ode to the newly emerging American culture and the contributions from marginalized groups which made it unique, it was also a sentimental love letter to Dvořák’s beloved homeland, which he missed dearly while across the Atlantic. This is a narrative I can relate to and try to encapsulate in “New World Sinfonia,” which references homesickness and heartache through the linguistic beauty of poetry and the universal language of music. By using caesura form, I attempted to create a catalog of images in a way that resembles the projector cameras children play with or a vintage photo slideshow: the click and an inch of blank space being the only transition between separate images kept together in one disk of memory.
The list of household items in the middle of the poem is another reflection of a personal experience. I moved from house to house as a child, and the list includes objects that often need to be replaced in a new home, especially one all the way across the ocean, as well as musical items (a Buffet Crampon barrel is a part of a clarinet) and other things that could carry emotion. But these objects are similar in another way still: over the summer, a poetry mentor shared two life-changing philosophies. First, Dorothea Lasky’s “To be the thing,” which compares metaphors to boxes and plates, things that hold other things--a metaphor about metaphors. Second, the etymology of the word “poet” from Latin and Greek: a maker, a creator. Each item in the list is an inherently poetic one, an object that could hold something else and be a vessel for some deeper meaning.
Ultimately, the poem is a reflection of the speaker’s attempt to come to terms with the present in a new world and let go of the one they left behind in an effort to not be pained by the distance--and an apology for their failure to do so. The song about the olive tree is the Chinese hit, “橄榄树,” sung by 齐豫. While this tune is the stylistic opposite of the New World Symphony, it features the same bittersweet theme, reminding us that desire, for belonging and a place to call home, is the strongest human emotion of all.
Assistant Editor Matt Hsu on “New World Sinfonia”:
If I had to describe this poem in one word, it would be “ethereal.” The imagery transports the reader to a moment that’s gorgeous, yet fleeting, a breezy autumn day flooding with nostalgia. The simple, specific descriptions of objects that remind the speaker of home—“ceramic creamers,” “pomelo peel,” “dutch doors”—allow us to truly experience their pining. Beyond this imagery, Ye weaves a gorgeous web of familial connections that pack the piece with complex emotion. The “strokes of wind a mother spilled” and “fluid/flowing wisps of fathers” make me imagine a mother attempting to fill the space an absent father has left. The speaker’s attempt to “rest on eyelashes the way raindrops do” demonstrates their need for stoicism amidst their grandmother’s “syllables softened by longing/loving.” Another aspect of this piece I love is the use of touch for sensory details. Phrases like “the contour of a thing you should know in vein” or “a river is a birthmark from above” inspire me to touch a finger to my arm and try to feel what the speaker feels. Sinfonia is the Italian word for symphony, and that’s what this piece is: an exquisite, melodious symphony.
Along the dry spine of California, there is nothing much outside the car window: road trips are a blur of beige and the smell of farmed manure until you stumble upon a poppy field or an In-N-Out Burger. It was Thanksgiving Day, and I, a first-generation immigrant, was feeling exceptionally American. As I sat in the passenger seat on the way to Solvang, I was shocked by a picturesque autumn in front of the windshield. The landscape reminded me of a Grant Wood painting I had seen in Iowa the summer before, the plaque beneath it describing how Wood chose to depict the humble beauty of the American Midwest rather than scavenging for an unrealistic Renaissance-style scene like many artists in his time.
This half-patriotic, half-nostalgic mood inspired me to relisten to Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, which Dvořák composed shortly after moving to the United States from Bohemia. Filled with Native American hymns and African American folk songs, this iconic orchestral masterpiece is often referred to as the New World Symphony: a nickname I refashioned to be the title for my own poem. Instead of “symphony,” I chose the word “sinfonia,” which is an orchestral prelude to a grander work like an opera or cantata--a foreword, a preface, perhaps a disclaimer.
While New World Symphony was an ode to the newly emerging American culture and the contributions from marginalized groups which made it unique, it was also a sentimental love letter to Dvořák’s beloved homeland, which he missed dearly while across the Atlantic. This is a narrative I can relate to and try to encapsulate in “New World Sinfonia,” which references homesickness and heartache through the linguistic beauty of poetry and the universal language of music. By using caesura form, I attempted to create a catalog of images in a way that resembles the projector cameras children play with or a vintage photo slideshow: the click and an inch of blank space being the only transition between separate images kept together in one disk of memory.
The list of household items in the middle of the poem is another reflection of a personal experience. I moved from house to house as a child, and the list includes objects that often need to be replaced in a new home, especially one all the way across the ocean, as well as musical items (a Buffet Crampon barrel is a part of a clarinet) and other things that could carry emotion. But these objects are similar in another way still: over the summer, a poetry mentor shared two life-changing philosophies. First, Dorothea Lasky’s “To be the thing,” which compares metaphors to boxes and plates, things that hold other things--a metaphor about metaphors. Second, the etymology of the word “poet” from Latin and Greek: a maker, a creator. Each item in the list is an inherently poetic one, an object that could hold something else and be a vessel for some deeper meaning.
Ultimately, the poem is a reflection of the speaker’s attempt to come to terms with the present in a new world and let go of the one they left behind in an effort to not be pained by the distance--and an apology for their failure to do so. The song about the olive tree is the Chinese hit, “橄榄树,” sung by 齐豫. While this tune is the stylistic opposite of the New World Symphony, it features the same bittersweet theme, reminding us that desire, for belonging and a place to call home, is the strongest human emotion of all.
Assistant Editor Matt Hsu on “New World Sinfonia”:
If I had to describe this poem in one word, it would be “ethereal.” The imagery transports the reader to a moment that’s gorgeous, yet fleeting, a breezy autumn day flooding with nostalgia. The simple, specific descriptions of objects that remind the speaker of home—“ceramic creamers,” “pomelo peel,” “dutch doors”—allow us to truly experience their pining. Beyond this imagery, Ye weaves a gorgeous web of familial connections that pack the piece with complex emotion. The “strokes of wind a mother spilled” and “fluid/flowing wisps of fathers” make me imagine a mother attempting to fill the space an absent father has left. The speaker’s attempt to “rest on eyelashes the way raindrops do” demonstrates their need for stoicism amidst their grandmother’s “syllables softened by longing/loving.” Another aspect of this piece I love is the use of touch for sensory details. Phrases like “the contour of a thing you should know in vein” or “a river is a birthmark from above” inspire me to touch a finger to my arm and try to feel what the speaker feels. Sinfonia is the Italian word for symphony, and that’s what this piece is: an exquisite, melodious symphony.