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.

This website is maintained and funded entirely by the editor as a labour of love. 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 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: Go to Meifu's Poems




POEM OF THE DAY     一天一首诗

GRAIN-DRYING COURT

  • By Chen Renjie

  • An oblong plot to sun bake, or shall we say
  • an oblong pied-à-terre to receive
  • autumn's overabundant grains and cotton
  • even if the underbrush flowers refuse to fade at summer's end.

  • Why is it oblong and not another shape?
  • But why not? See, it has the same shape as my joy
  • — a little longer than short and a little shorter than 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,
  • and yet the dead will quietly reincarnate before dawn.

  • The shadows of the clouds stand so still.
  • A carpet of blue spruce rolls out for 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 thread going up diagonally to the sky, tethering
  • a youth on earth, akin to a grain, with an unbridled dream
  • like a kite in the sky that's larger than his hometown.

  • Translated by Meifu Wang & Michael Soper

This poem was originally written in Chinese and published in Poetry Journal (Beijing, China); its English translation first appeared on this website and simultaneously in China via WeChat (微信).

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

  

Chen Renjie 陈人杰

b. 1968

Chen Renjie is from 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。

Read Chen Renjie's poem here: Grain-Drying Court.