THE JOURNAL OF 21st Century Chinese Poetry 《廿一世纪漢語诗歌》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 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.

In summer 2026, Meifu decided to change the Chinese title of the journal from 《廿一世纪中国诗歌》 to《廿一世纪漢語诗歌》, to emphasize the essence of the collection: poetry written in Chinese language rather than the poets' geographic origins.

You can read some of Meifu's poems here: Go to Meifu's Poems

POEM OF THE DAY     一天一首诗

LANZHOU: THE GROWING-UP YEARS

• by Yang Yang


• Today, a low-salt diet is promoted for health,
• but I remember the old days without sugar.
• Five boys, all sugar-deficient,
• lined up like an uneven row of sunflowers,
• each sprouting a full inch after the rain.
• We had no sweets, yet joy was plenty
• Living by the railway, the steam engine was our toy,
• up and down and around we played,
• until the day Little Donkey's father died on the tracks.
• The black train kept puffing
• towards the same horizon. but our childhood ended right there.
• Let me write down one more memory here.
• One day I watched a rooster thrashing in wild panic,
• its throat freshly cut.
• The villain raised his blood-stained palm
• and stamped it onto an abandoned white wall —
• leaving his mark beside a political slogan.
• Decades have passed, and I can no longer
• remember what the slogan said,
• or what it meant to me then.
• No, those were not sweet days.
• The iron horse claimed every scrap of metal from the blacksmiths' hands,
• and our childhood was thrown away in a single morning.


• Translated by Meifu Wang & Michael Soper

• This poem was 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).

  以上译文之原版漢语诗歌: 兰州：生长之城（作者：阳飏）.

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

  
  

  >  

  Yang Yang 阳飏（张向阳）

  b. 1953
  
  Yang Yang, a poet and essayist, was born in Beijing and now lives in Gansu Province, where he works as the chief editor of Lanzhou Literary Garden. He has published several poetry collections, including Selected Poems of Yang Yang, Roster for the End of the Century,Tibetan Plateau Travel Log, and South of Gansu, 8 Episodes. Yang Yang has won several national awards for his poetry. In addition to poetry and prose, he also writes non-fiction.
  
  阳飏, 原名张向阳。天津人，中国作家协会会员。毕业于兰州师专。毕业后在兰州市文联从事编辑工作，任《兰州文苑》主编。著有诗集《阳飏诗选》、《世纪末的花名册》（合作），长诗《青海湖长短句》、《落日之色——笺注〈中国通史〉》、《西夏王陵笔记》、《青藏旅行日记》、《有关青海湖》、《西藏：迎风诵唱》、《甘南：8个片断》、《咏叹》等，随笔《生命的谢恩》，散文《青藏高原记事》等。曾获甘肃优秀文学作品奖、《飞天》文学月刊优秀作品奖、《星星》诗刊中国星星1999年度跨世纪诗歌奖、甘肃省政府敦煌文艺奖、甘肃省优秀文学编辑奖等奖项。作品多次入选各种选本。
  
  Read Yang Yang's poems here: Lanzhou: The Growing-Up Years.