The power of simple words, images, and art: Ava M. Hu in Yin and Yang

Photography by JoAnna Schillaci

Yin and Yang poet, Ava M. Hu, is an artist and poet currently residing in NYC.  She designs her own clothing line called avalove with a shop in Artists & Fleas in Chelsea Market, NYC. She creates one poem, one metaphor at a time. Ava received the Amy Award from Poets & Writers magazine as best woman poet under 30 in NYC, and Jane Hirshfield picked her poem, Varanasi, as first place for the America's Review Poetry contest.

Ava M. Hu

She has submitted a number of simple poems for inclusion in Yin and Yang: The Duality of Balance.  Ava's word choice is exquisite, eliciting raw, and often nostalgic emotion from a few short lines of descriptive language. She does this in all her pieces, whether describing the relationship nature and god, and how it reveals itself in the "Secret Mantra" of love, or representing in ten very short lines how one can achieve all they desire through observing the space, time, and poetry between the stars, between molecules of water.

As an undergrad at Sarah Lawrence College, Ava Hu studied poetry and sculpture. To Ava, there is a fine line between art and poetry, one a written metaphor, the other visual. 

"Her poetry is sparse, to the point and freeing," editor Charla Dury writes.  "Ava appreciates the lack of flowery words, the short concise thoughts and the questions that inflame your brain."

Ava is happiest when creating—whether a poem, a clothing design, or gluing glittery planets together. Since a poet's work is solitary, Ava enjoys balancing that by working with others, like with the Nesting Project, where she helped build a forest filled with artists' renditions of nests for the Jivamukti Yoga School, raising money for Habitat for Humanity.

"I’m most passionate about is the moment creation happens," Ava said.

And she has certainly transferred this passion to the page, where it has the ability to wing up and stir emotion in the reader with an unlikely image, comparison, or starkness such as that which is found in some of the most beautiful aspects of life.

Ava is inspired by music, listening to a song over and over like a meditation while writing poetry.

"[Listening to music] I can be open, and listen the most, to the inner workings of the universe, or the heart, or whatever that place is where creation springs from," Ava said.

Charla writes about Ava’s poem "Question," one of four of hers featured in Yin and Yang. Charla said is best listened to as Ava writes, with music. "In it resides a brain twister, forcing your thoughts to wrap around concepts larger than yourself.  Meditate on them."

Read more of Ava's work by pre-ordering Yin and Yang: the Duality of Balance and have it in-hand in time for holiday gift-giving. Click: Mind Key Store or visit www.mindkey.me/anthology to order.

Find Ava online at and in Artists and Fleas in Chelsea Market at Avalove shop: 459 W. 15th Street, New York, NY 10011 and at www.avaloveshop.com and www.avamhu.com.

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