This book—the first comprehensive anthology in English of modern Chinese poetry—presents more than three hundred poems by sixty-six poets from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. All the poems are translated from the original Chinese into modern-day English, and many are introduced to the English-speaking world for the first time. The poems, which span the period from the 1910s to the present, represent the three watersheds in modern Chinese poetry: the early years, before the civil war and Communist rule halted serious literary pursuits; the Taiwan phase, from the 1950s to the 1970s, when the vernacular became the new poetic medium and broadened the scope of poetic expression; and the post-1970s, when avant-garde movements brought a resurgence of aesthetic consciousness and artistic experimentation. The anthology includes a lengthy introduction, biographical notes for each poet, and a select bibliography. Michelle Yeh's introduction provides a critical analysis of the rise and development of modern Chinese poetry. She argues that the poetry can be viewed collectively as an original and imaginative reaction to the marginalization of poetry in the twentieth century by various historical, sociopolitical, and ideological forces, and it is in this framework that we can best understand the major debates and controversies in the history of modern Chinese poetry. Voices from the margin, the poems in this volume powerfully evoke the richness and complexity of modern Chinese society and culture.
