The New York Times has a write-up on the Arts Beijing International Chinese Poetry Prize , headed by Yang Lian 杨炼, and its 50,000 entries for best poem. (In addition to Yang, Arts Beijing includes in its sphere Chinese poets such as Mang Ke 芒克, as well as W. N. Herbert, Adonis, George Szirtes, Breyten Breytenbach, Joachim Sartorius, Rebecca Horn, and Bas Kwakman) The article offers decent coverage of the breadth, if not the depth, of contemporary Chinese poetry. One point by Yang seems not only well-phrased but insightful:

“We used to say poetry was ‘hot’ because society was so ‘cold,’ ” meaning spare and poor, he said. Poets were speaking out against a highly repressive regime. “Today, they say, poetry is ‘cold’ because society is ‘hot.’ It’s economically developed. What I think they are expressing in poetry today has not been the subject of Chinese poetry before.”

Click on the image above for the article in full.