Cam Rivers Publishing

Yang Ke

In contemporary poetic scene, Yang Ke is a unique poet who has exhibited through his work personalized historical imagination and a will for truth. His urban poetry writing has created a peculiar subjectivity. For more than 30 years, his writing which is heavily informed by traditional Chinese poetry cannon, has embarked on an alternative path, with its forceful emotional appeal and its drives for an innovative poetics.

 So far, Yang Ke has published numerous works including eleven poetry books including Yang Ke's Poems, Related and Unrelated, I Speak the Shape of the Wind among others, four prose essays and one non-fiction book by The People's Literature Publishing House and Taiwan Huapin Wenchuang Co.,Ltd., etc. Yang Ke’s poetry books have been translated into 10 different languages and published by Japanese Ichao Society, the University of Oklahoma University Press, and the University of Zaragoza, Spain and others in 6 countries. Yang Ke’s poems and essays are anthologized in 400 kinds of books such as China's New Literature Series and 100 Years of Chinese New Poetry.

Yang Ke was the editor-in-chief of Chinese New Poetry Yearbook (1998-2017), They :10 Years of Poetry, and 100 New Poems for Children. He was awarded the "Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry Award" in the United Kingdom, the "Outstanding Poet Award" from the Romanian Publishing Copyright Corporation, the Guangdong Lu Xun Literature and Art Award, the First Biennial Top Ten Poets Award and other international, Chinese and Taiwan literature awards. He also held solo exhibitions in poetry at the Shenzhen Art Museum. 

Yang Ke is the president of the Chinese Poetry Association, the director of the Creative Writing Centre, Yushan professor at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, president and editor-in-chief of the Literary Journal, Works, and research fellow of the Poetry Research Institute of Peking University.


Yang Ke’s poetry is valuable as a remarkable insight into both timeless China, and the most extraordinarily rapid transformation from rural to urban life that has ever happened on this planet.
— Professor Alan Macfarlane FBA

640.jpg