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:
Dirt Road
Water Droplets
Windborne
Song of Sleep<
To Father
Dirge
Reading Baudelaire Into the Night
Sea Crag
To Melville
Why Did She Go To the Fortune Teller
An Imperfect House

POEM OF THE DAY     一天一首诗

IS THERE A SPRING NOT BORN OUT OF NEAR-DEATH?

• by Pan Xichen


• After trying to spawn day and night,
• snow finally comes through.
• Snowflakes enwrap my mother
• and the entire
• magnificent north.
• Now, in a different
• kingdom, so sunny and so bright
• with a temperature difference of 50 degrees,
• I can still feel
• the bone-chilling men-eating
• unforgiving cold.
• But only an idler
• would say: Winter is here,
• therefore spring cannot be that far away.
• Can anyone imagine winter would voluntarily leave?
• Can anyone tell me
• that they have ever seen a spring
• that didn't go through a survival fight?
• Can anyone tell me that they have seen a spring
• that wasn't born out of near-death!


• Translated by Meifu Wang, Michael Soper & Johan Ramaekers

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.

  

Pan Xichen 潘洗尘

b. 1963

Pan Xichen was born in Heilongjiang Province, northeastern China in 1963. He graduated from Harbin Normal University with a major in Chinese Language and Literature. Some of his poems, such as Drinking Wine on September 9th and Let Us Go to the Sea in June have been included in high school and college textbooks. He has published 12 books of poems and essays. He is the editor of Reading Poetry.）

潘洗尘，1963年生于黑龙江，1986年毕业于哈尔滨师范大学中文系。上世纪八十年代开始诗歌创作，有诗作《饮九月初九的酒》《六月我们看海去》等入选普通高中语文课本和大学语文教材，作品曾被译为英、法、俄等多种文字，先后出版诗集、随笔集12部。曾获《绿风》奔马奖、柔刚诗歌奖、《上海文学》奖、《诗潮》最受读者喜爱的诗歌年度金奖、《新世纪诗典》李白诗歌奖成就奖、2016年度十大好诗、2016年度中国十佳诗人等多种诗歌奖项。现为天问文化传播机构董事长，《读诗》主编。

Pan Xichen's poem can be read here: Is There A Spring Not Born Out Of Near Death?