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 or pathsharer@hotmail.com.

Founder and Editor
Meifu Wang



A TASTE OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE POETRY

From 2012 to 2015, our team worked with a group of Chinese poets in China to introduce contemporary Chinese poetry to the wider world. We translated the works of 66 contemporary Chinese poets into English and broadcast them on this website and in print (ISSN 2166-3688).

From 2018 to 2022, we further collaborated 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 read the poems we translated over the years. Meifu is also in the process of updating the old numbers of 21st Century Chinese Poetry (No.1 - No. 15) and add them to "POEMS 2000-2015" on this website.

You can read some of Meifu's poems here:
Dirt Road
Water Droplets
The Simple Thing Called Love
London Blues
To Melville
To Father
Dirge
Reading Baudelaire Into the Night
Sea Crag

POEM OF THE DAY     一天一首诗

RAGGED ROBIN

• by Liu Quan


• "In no time they will sallow
• like old candle sticks, sad but also touching,
• and when the stalks dry out,
• little green bugs will fly away.”
• He told me that the pond of his middle-aged heart had trembled three times,
• each time it ached by the touch of a Ragged Robin.


• Translated by Meifu Wang & Michael Soper

Originally written in Chinese; its English translation first appeared on this website and in 21st Century Chinese Poetry, No. 7 , 《廿一世纪中国诗歌》, 第七辑    (Books are currently out of print, but their contents are being gradually added to this website.)

We encourage you to read this poem as an exercise of slow reading.

  

Liu Quan 流泉 (娄卫高)

b. 1963

Liu Quan was born in Zhejiang Province on the Yangtze River Delta. His first poem was published in 1986, but he stopped writing after 1992 until pulled back into China's vibrant online poetic scene in 2007. He has published three poetry collections: Getting Close to You in Dust,Time Is Wide in the Wind, and Galvanized Steel.

流泉，原名娄卫高，浙江龙泉人，祖籍湖南娄底，现居丽水。中国作家协会会员，中国电影家协会会员，丽水学院客座教授。曾先后在《诗刊》《星星》《北京文学》等国内外报刊杂志发表各类文学作品，多次入选各种年度选本。

Read Liu Quan's poems: Odes to Mountains and Rivers, and Ragged Robin.