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 a group of Chinese poets in China to introduce contemporary Chinese poetry to the wider world. We translated the recent 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 the 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 Crag
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
REBIRTH
- by Xu Xiao
-
- Fate, I refuse to be your sacrificial lamb.
- Rapier, my wounded tongue will no longer lick your shivery tip.
- After this loud cry, I will yank out the hardened tumor in me,
- but love, the eternal gift from heaven,
- will swim day and night like oxygen in my blood.
- Untested rivers, I will no longer risk my life to traverse you.
- My highbrowed eyes will continue to raise two mountains
- — like two army regiments side by side
- with flying banners end-to-end. Under my feet
- is a regenerated garden. I have just arrived at
- this new world. No more floating snow
- to despair my heart. The secrets have been locked away
- for thousands of nights, and I still can't bring myself
- to undo the dusty buttons that keep them in,
- but retain the hope they would join one another in comradery
- in time’s ruin, adjusting to the new orchestration
- without having to perform the dreary how-do-you-do ritual.
- I quietly await this moment. All shall crystalize —
- when rebirth comes before dawn, with the memories of a brutal past.
- Translated by Meifu Wang, Michael Soper & Guy Hibbert
-
Originally written in Chinese and published in Poetry Journal (Beijing, China) ; this English version first appeared on this website and simultaneously in China via WeChat (微信)
Xu Xiao
徐晓
b. 1992
Xu Xiao, novelist, essayist, and poet, is from City of Gaomi, Shandong Province. She is a a member of Shandong Writers’ Association, and a graduate from Shandong Normal University in Liberal Arts. Her literary works have appeared in literary magazines across China. She has published a novel, Almost Happy Being in Love with You , and a poetry collection: The Outsider.
徐晓,1992年生,山东高密人,山东省作家协会会员,现为山东师范大学文学院2015级美学硕士研究生。有小说、诗歌、散文等文学作品散见于《人民文学》《诗刊》《星星》《诗选刊》等文学期刊及《2013年中国短篇小说排行榜》、《2015中国年度诗歌》等选本。出版长篇小说《爱上你几乎就幸福了》、诗集《局外人》。