These are unusual times. These poets are tale-tellers of their world.                  (All rights reserved.)
  • I am waiting in the land of poetry. waiting in hope for its clanging sounds and forceful roaring past! -Ren Xianqing, Issue 1
  • Now we are on board, let's not bring up any depressing topics; no more debates about the pet peeves in those capitalist countries.

THE JOURNAL OF 21st Century Chinese Poetry 《廿一世纪中国诗歌》is an independent journal committed to showcasing the best of contemporary Chinese poetry. We exist to discover and celebrate poetry and the Chinese poets who write them with the largest possible Anglophone audience.

In the early twentieth century, The May Fourth Movement (1917-1921) launched an era where vernacular Chinese was for the first time accepted as a legitimate poetic voice. This was followed by an outpouring of verse written in 'plain speech' by people from all walks of life in contrast to the classical, elitist poetic forms of imperial China.

A century has now passed since these 'new' poetic voices emerged. Vernacular poetry has continued to blossom in poetry journals and in cyberspace.

The editor and translators at 21st Century Chinese Poetry are committed to translating poets from across China who would otherwise remain virtually unknown to Western audiences.

Please send all enquiries, suggestions and corrections regarding 21st Century Chinese Poetry to Meifu Wang at:

editor@modernchinesepoetry.com.

Founder and Editor
Meifu Wang



A TASTE OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE POETRY

From 2012 to 2015, our team worked with several poets in China to introduce contemporary Chinese poetry to the wider world. We translated recent works by 66 contemporary Chinese poets into English and publicized them on this website and in print.

In 2019 to 2023, our team further developed a partnership with China's Poetry Journal (诗刊) to bring a selection of their monthly publication to world-wide readers. Poetry Journal (Beijing, China）was founded in 1957, with an emphasis on the publication of contemporary Chinese poetry as well as classical poetry by living poets. It is the widest-circulated poetry journal in China.

Circulating more than sixty years, the journal has brought together and introduced a great number of poets, reflecting many of the sweeping changes that the country has witnessed over that period.







A REPOSE

Since summer of 2023, Meifu has turned her focus to her own poetry and to poetry from other parts of the world. Please continue to visit this website and look through the poems we translated over the years.

or read some of Meifu's poems:
Dirt Road
 Water Droplets
Sea Crags
To Melville
To Father
Dirge
Reading Baudelaire Into the Night

We are in the process of updating and re-printing the old numbers of 21st Century Chinese Poetry (No.1 - No. 15). Please stay tuned.





POEM OF THE DAY     一天一首诗

GRAIN-DRYING COURT

  • By Chen Renjie

  • An oblong plot of land,
  • a place to receive the infinite arrivals of grains and cotton,
  • or, shall we say, an oblong way to welcome autumn,
  • even if the wild flowers continue to bloom under the hedges at summer's end.

  • Why is it oblong and not
  • another shape? But why not? See, my joy has the same shape too
  • — a little longer than too short, a little shorter than too long.
  • But when the evening arrives,
  • it will be slightly bent out of shape by noises: the struggle continues
  • between a pack of wolves and a flock of sheep.
  • The dead will quietly breathe new life again at night.

  • The shadows of the clouds stand so still.
  • A blue mat of spruce reaches as far as the eye can see,
  • almost a perfect rectangle,
  • unchanging in face of the capricious village life.

  • In this oblong courtyard, I sometimes notice
  • an invisible line going up obliquely to the sky, tethering
  • a young man on earth, akin to a grain, with his unbridled dream,
  • like a kite in the sky, larger than his hometown.

  • Translated by Meifu Wang & Michael Soper

First appeared on this website and simultaneously in China via WeChat （微信） by our partner — China's Poetry Journal （诗刊）

  

Chen Renjie 陈人杰

b. 1968

Chen Renjie was born in Tiantai, Zhejiang Province in eastern China. He has won several poetry awards in China, including "Xu Zhimo Poetry Award" (徐志摩诗歌奖), "Young Poet Award" by China's Poetry Journal (青年诗人奖《诗刊》), and "Yangtze River Poetry Award"(扬子江诗学奖). He is also a lyricist, the author of 16 songs.

陈人杰，浙江天台人。曾获“徐志摩诗歌奖”“《诗刊》青年诗人奖”“扬子江诗学奖”“珠穆朗玛文学艺术奖特别奖”“五个一工程奖”等奖项，曾担任西藏历史上首部大型史诗性音乐组歌《极地放歌中国梦》的文学总监和16首歌的词作者，作品入选《年度中国最佳诗歌》等多种选本。