21st Century Chinese Poetry

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 NEW SEASON OF POETRY

From 2019 to 2022, our editor and translator team worked in partnership with China's Poetry Journal (诗刊) to bring contemporary Chinese poetry to our 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.

YET ANOTHER SEASON OF POETRY

Since summer of 2022, 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

THE SAME OLD STORY

by Rong Rong

A man and a woman —
it's a little like a traffic accident
between an old car and an even older car.
The decade-old streets were rerouted,
so they met at the new freeway exchange one day.
During a traffic jam, they collided
— he and she —
like two vehicles.
The first casualty was the broken promises,
but lies would live another day, with growing disappointments.
The sky looked shattered through the windshield,
and repairing the damage would devour half of the spring.
In the dark, hideous details and pangs of desire
resurfaced again and again.
How in the world would they know how to navigate the maze of traffic rules?
The injury was deep because the commitment was deep,
but once again it proved the culprit
was the lack of strong will.
After one bloody hemorrhage: from the nerve ends to the brain,
even the skin contracted anxiety disorder.
Speed limits, red lights, one-way streets, traffic tickets —
a love affair became a nightmarish maneuver —
no ambulance but time can come to their rescue.
They are now two survivors.
Can he realign?
Can she forget the nagging doubt about the car’s reliability?
She has become the most careful driver,
worried about wrecking her second-hand car.
Translated by Meifu Wang

First appeared on this website and on 21st Century Chinese Poetry, No. 3 , 《廿一世纪中国诗歌》, 第三辑 (Books are currently out of print, but will be reissued with updates shortly.)

Rong Rong 荣荣

b. 1964

Born in Ningpo, Zhejiang Province on the Yangtze Delta, Rong Rong graduated from the chemistry department at Zhejiang Normal College in 1984. She has published averal portry collections, including Flowers in the Wind (风中的花束), Black Coffee (黑咖啡) and Ruins (废墟). She has also won two prestigious poetry awards: The Lu Xun Literary Award, and the Xu Zhimo Literary Award. Rong Rong is the editor for the literary magazine Literature Harbor (文学港). Rong Rong is the pen name of Zhu Peirong (褚佩荣).

荣荣，原名褚佩荣，1964年出生于宁波，毕业于浙师大化学系，先后做过教师，公务员，现为《文学港》杂志社主编，宁波市作家协会主席，浙江省作协副主席。出版过多部诗集及散文随笔集等，参加过诗刊社第十届青春诗会，曾获首届徐志摩诗歌节青年诗人奖，《诗刊》年度优秀诗人奖，《人民文学》诗歌奖，中国作家出版集团优秀作家贡献奖。诗集《看见》获全国第四届鲁迅文学奖。