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 Sheep Come to Town

by Ye Zhou

In the midnight hour, the sheep come to town
through blustery snow,
across the city square.
In the midnight hour, the sheep come to town
in winter coats, woolly side out,
like small prophets under torchlight.
In the midnight hour, the sheep come,
crossing the Yellow River
into the City of Lanzhou from the west.
In the midnight hour, the sheep come,
straight to the butcher’s knives
behind the meat shops.
In the midnight hour, the sheep come to town
like a holy scripture
unrolling.
The bygone happiness of childhood
is buried like a milk pail
under the mountain snow.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came
with brave footsteps,
like playful kids, eighteen in all.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came,
and carried away doors and beds
in bamboo baskets.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came,
turning the city into a ghost town,
lighting the torch for their own sacrifice.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came
with human faces, a squad
of rebels in a failed uprising.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came
with a chance to redeem
their fatherland: the parents of an orphan.
Their beautiful chant
had impressed the innocents
to leave home, to kneel down and submit.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came
like a repertory circuit
in cheerful spirits.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came
in the name of DEATH,
sitting on the ridge of the world.
In the midnight hour, the sheep came
in black or in white,
the look of love at the dawn of day.
Translated by Meifu Wang & Michael Soper

First appeared on this website and on 21st Century Chinese Poetry, No. 5 , 《廿一世纪中国诗歌》, 第五辑 (Books are currently out of print, but will be reissued with updates shortly.)

Ye Zhou 叶舟

b. 1966

Ye Zhou is a poet, essayist, and novelist. He studied at Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou with a major in Chinese Language and Literature in the 1980s, and has worked in academia and as a journalist since then. Ye Zhou also attended the prestigious Lu Xun Creative Writing Program in Beijing, and received the Lu Xun Literature Prize in 2014 for his short story 'Peace Within My Tent' (我的帐篷里有平安). Ye lives in Lanzhou, Gansu Province.

叶舟，诗人，小说家，编剧，毕业于西北师大中文系，现供职于兰州晨报社，甘肃省作家协会副主席。《我的帐篷里有平安》荣获2014年第六届鲁迅文学奖短篇小说奖。