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) opened the door for vernacular Chinese to be 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.

21st Century Chinese Poetry aims to carry that tradition further: translating poets from across China for readers who would otherwise never encounter them.

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.

WHERE THINGS STAND NOW

For a decade, this website has been a labour of love of the editor, out of devotion to poetry and poets, to bring contemporary Chinese poetry to English-speaking readers.

Since summer of 2023, Meifu has turned her attention to her own poetry and to poetry from other parts of the world. Please continue to explore the poems translated here over the years. Meifu is also gradually updating the earlier issues of 21st Century Chinese Poetry (No.1 - No. 15) and adding them to poems "from Other Journals". Meifu also continues to meet with Chinese poets periodically, in China or overseas, to explore ways to add new poems to 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

DAWN REDWOOD

• by Feng Qiang


• A squad of avenue trees stands guard at the gatehouse of our Telecom Community,
• alert like exposed urban nerves. Their bare arms
• conform to gravitropism, quickly adopting
• a proper tilt, preferably perpendicular
• to the ground, no arching or maundering, always ready to put out
• a new spur. Dawn redwoods give themselves very little time to dither,
• not entirely pleased with men's arbitration of their space, but quickly gauge
• the distance between one another, ironing out the direction
• to add a new spear so that everyone
• gets a nice sprinkle of sunlight. My daughter and I marvel at
• their tacit mutual respect: what length of branch
• for what opening, not stiff-necked but willing to sidestep
• to reach for the sun and push harder to reach a new height.
• Each tree meditates by the road, gilding and shading our avenues
• — sometimes one is chopped down to make room for a car park;
• they share the pain with a subterranean fist-bump, and share
• the benign pinch of lime or the otherwise total neglect from us. A dawn redwood
• will always be a dawn redwood, always adjusts its tilt to earth.


• Translated by Meifu Wang & Guy Hibbert


• 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.

  
  
  

    

  Feng Qiang 冯强

  b. 1982
  
  Feng Qiang was born in Jiaozhou, Shandong Province. He earned a Ph.D in Literature from Beijing Normal University. He is an associate professor at College of Humanities of Guangxi Normal University.
  
  冯强，1982年生于山东胶州人，北京师范大学文学院博士，先后师从耿占春教授和张清华教授，现为广西师范大学文学院副教授。
  
  Read Feng Qiang's poem: Dawn Redwood.