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 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
London Blues
Song of Sleep
To Father
Dirge
Reading Baudelaire Into the Night
Sea Crag
To Melville

POEM OF THE DAY     一天一首诗

DAISIES AND TANGERINES

• by Xiong Fang


• This time of the year, the most unabashed displays on land
• are the daisies all over the hills and the tangerines on the twiglets.
• Daisies and tangerines, flowers and fruit face off
• in simultaneous blooms — one pours its heart out,
• the other wraps a tenderness within, and waits for its turn
• to explode. The mirthless gray winter, still young,
• is provoked by yellow daisies and orange tangerines to go rouge.
• Amongst these warm colour tones, I am the least noticeable.
• The season has its mix of doldrums and witchery,
• we also have our winter blues and furores.


• 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).

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

  

Xiong Fang 熊芳

b. 1987

Xiong Fang was born in Taoyuan, Hunan Province. She is the Literary Page editor for Changde Daily Newspaper in Hunan province. Her poems have appeared in various literary magazines across China.

熊芳，87年生，湖南桃源人，曾参加《人民文学》第五届“新浪潮”诗会，组诗见于《人民文学》《诗刊》《星星》《扬子江诗刊》《汉诗》等，入选多个年选版本。曾获“人民文学 紫金之星”奖、台湾叶红女性诗歌奖、常德原创文艺奖诗歌奖等。现为常德日报社副刊编辑。

Read Xiong Fang's poem: Daisies and Tangerines.