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 :

欢迎来信，编辑邮箱地址如下：

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 2023, Meifu has turned some of her attention to her own poetry and to poetry from other parts of the world, but continues to meet with Chinese poets periodically, in China and overseas, to explore ways to add new poems to this website. 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 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

THE MOSQUITO (excerpt)

• by D. H. LAWRENCE （1885—1930）


•    with Chinese Translation by Meifu Wang

•    — for US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar

• ...
• It is your trump
• It is your hateful little trump
• You pointed fiend,
• Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you:
• It is your small, high, hateful bugle in my ear.
• Why do you do it?
• Surely it is bad policy.
• They say you can't help it.
• If that is so, then I believe a little in Providence protecting the innocent.
• But it sounds so amazingly like a slogan
• A yell of triumph as you snatch my scalp.
• Blood, red blood
• Super-magical
• Forbidden liquor.
• I behold you stand
• For a second enspasmed in oblivion,
• Obscenely ecstasied
• Sucking live blood
• My blood.
• Such silence, such suspended transport,
• Such gorging,
• Such obscenity of trespass.
• You stagger
• As well as you may.
• Only your accursed hairy frailty
• Your own imponderable weightlessness
• Saves you, wafts you away on the very draught my anger makes in its snatching.
• Away with a pæan of derision
• You winged blood-drop.
• Can I not overtake you?
• Are you one too many for me
• Winged Victory?
• Am I not mosquito enough to out-mosquito you?
• Queer, what a big stain my sucked blood makes
• Beside the infinitesimal faint smear of you!
• Queer, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into!
• _______________
• 
  
• Meifu's note: I happened to listen to this poem on the promenade in Eastbourne, England, where I spend much of my time these days. A few things came to mind, and I hurried home to translate it into Chinese; this translation first appeared on this website.
• 
  


• 蚊子 （節譯）
• 大衛·赫伯特·勞倫斯 （1885—1930）
• ......
• 你們崇拜的那個惡漢，
• 那個卑鄙的小人，
• 那個尖嘴的惡魔，
• 這次把我澎湃的血液攪出憤恨的波瀾。
• 你們何苦糟蹋人？
• 明知不會有好下場？
• 你們說是身不由己。
• 既然你們這麼說，也許我就該相信一切都是神意，
• 而且上蒼會庇護無辜者，但這樣想多像被洗了腦。
• 你咬了我頭皮之後，嗡的一聲而去。
• 血，鮮紅的血，
• 一口就醉的
• 神聖不可侵犯的瓊漿。
• 我看見你們
• 喫了一口我的血，不亦悅乎地醉成一團，
• 沉浸在淫邪的狂喜之中，
• 喝的是活血，
• 我的血。
• 直升機似的一聲不吭，
• 懸空大口大口地吸吮我的血，
• 理直氣壯地闖進我的家門。
• 你魔鬼附身似
• 昏頭轉向的一副癲癡的模樣，
• 救了你們的，是一身輕如絨毛、
• 難以言喻的无足轻重，
• 把你們從我激昂的怒意中挾走。
• 肚子灌滿了我的血，
• 你騰空高唱凱歌而去，
• 難道你以為我會追不上你？
• 你以為我敵不過你？
• 你自以為是，以為自己如虎添翼？
• 以為我的手腕比不過蚊子般的卑鄙？
• 奇怪的是，我的皮膚雖然被你抹了一大塊血跡，
• 你的腳蹤卻微乎其微！
• 你等著瞧，你的歸鄉就是一灘污濁的死水！


• Translated by Meifu Wang
• 漢譯：王美富


• 譯者註：我在英國南岸伊斯特本的海濱步道上偶然讀到這首詩，心緒久久不能平靜，匆匆趕回家把它譯成中文。這篇譯文第一次發表在本網站上。