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

A TOAST TO THE BARLEY WINE OF DELINGHA*

• by Wang Xiaoni


• Everyone is waiting for the wine.
• Other than being gladly drunk,
• things are as we like it.
• The wine runner, chased by a lightning storm,
• scuttles past a spinney of skeletal cypress.
• The arid wilderness quickly darkens.
• With beer-goggled eyes,
• we see only a high-neck bottle flickering in someone’s bosom.
• Frankly, beer is not what we are waiting for.
• Tonight, everyone feels the urge to talk,
• but needs extra courage to wag their tongues.
• The sky is raging with cracking whips.
• Rushing through the door, just in time, is our wine runner holding the jug.
• Dear me, the door slams shut,
• at last we can open up,
• but before raising hell, let’s raise glasses.
• *Translator's note: Delingha is the seat of Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province in northwest China.


• Translated by Meifu Wang, Michael Soper, Peter Micic & 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.

  

Wang Xiaoni 王小妮

b. 1955

Wang Xiaoni is a poet of Manchurian descent born in the northeastern city of Changchun in 1955. She graduated from Jilin University in 1982 and worked as a script editor for a film studio. She has published several books of poetry, and won many literary awards. Since 1985, she has settled in Shenzhen in southwest China, and worked as a professor at the School of Humanities and Communication at Hainan University.

王小妮，满族，1955年生于吉林长春。1982年毕业于吉林大学，毕业后做电影文学编辑。1985年定居深圳。作品除诗歌外，涉及小说、散文、随笔等。2000年秋参加在东京举行的“世界诗人节”。2001年夏受德国幽堡基金会邀请赴德讲学。2003年获得由中国诗歌界最具有影响力的三家核心期刊《星星诗刊》、《诗选刊》、《诗歌月刊》联合颁发的“中国2002年度诗歌奖”。曾获美国安高诗歌奖。现为海南大学人文传播学院教授。

Wang Xiaoni's poem can be read here. Read A Toast to the Barley Wine From Delingha.