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 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 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). Please stay tuned.
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
POEM OF THE DAY 一天一首诗
MY INEPT LOVE FOR THIS WORLD
- by Wang Jibing
- The used sofa given by our neighbour
- made my wife very happy.
- She talked excitedly about the plan
- to find a proper coffee table to go with it,
- all the while trying to add a book, and another book,
- to prop up the corner of the sofa that lost a leg.
- I went to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water
- before coming out with a fresh smile.
- All these years
- I have been sweating in the sun,
- labouring to squeeze out the juice of life,
- but never can turn life into a jewel.
- In my own clumsy way I have loved this world,
- and love back those who love me.
- It has been almost thirty years, still, how unprepared I am
- to let tears flow in front of my wife.
- All I can do is be the pendulum of a clock
- — love and love back, a tick to a tock —
- a harmonic oscillator, ticktock, ticktock.
- Translated by Meifu Wang, Michael Soper & Guy Hibbert
-
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）
Wang Jibing 王计兵
b. 1969
Wang Jibing was born in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province. He works as a take-out food deliver, and writes poems whenever he can. He is a member of Xuzhou City Writers' Association. .
王计兵，1969年出生于江苏徐州，他既是一名外卖员，也是徐州作家协会成员。
