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 and 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

BEAUTY STANDARDS

• by Na Ye


• I hold the final vote in my hand,
• to choose between the two contestants before me.
• This is the last round.
• Here in the judges' corner
• my patience and aesthetic sense have nearly burned out,
• so I wait, for them
• to change into swimsuits
• or sheer, clinging gowns
• and drift towards me once more.
• And so it happens.
• With more bare flesh revealed,
• the secrets of their beauty grow legible.
• My choice, when it comes, is decisive —
• not by bust-waist-hip proportion,
• but by the way her body sways the audience's eyes:
• there is an air about her —
• the air of a martyr.


• Translated by Meifu Wang & Michael Soper

• This poem was originally written in Chinese. Its English translation first appeared on this website and in an issue of 21st Century Chinese Poetry 《廿一世纪中国诗歌》,  in both ebook and paperback editions. (The books are currently out of print, but their contents are gradually being added to this website.)

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

  
  

    

  Na Ye 娜夜

  b. 1964
  
  Na Ye, a descendant of the Manchu ethnic group, was born in Liaoning Province in northeastern China. She went on to study Chinese Language and Literature at Nanjing University. Over her career, she has published several poetry collections, including Reminisce about Love, Icy Lips, and Selected Poems of Na Ye. Amongst them, Selected Poems of Na Ye won the prestigious Lu Xun Literary Prize in 2005. She currently works at Lanzhou Evening News in Gansu Province, in western China.
  
  娜夜，生于辽宁兴城。1987年至1999年在南京大学中文系作家班读书，1999年至今在兰州晚报工作。有诗歌集：《回味爱情》、《冰唇》、《娜夜诗选》。
  
  Read Na Ye's poems: An Afternoon in Yunnan, Beauty Standards, and Labrang Monastery.