Abstract
What is the politics of form in the changing political climate? How does the writing of old-style poetry (jiuti shi) and new-style or modern vernacular poetry (xin shi) fare in digital times? As the internet, computers, smartphones, and Chinese internet poetry continue to evolve, how do these ongoing manifestations and technological transformations impact the landscape of poetry writing, and how do researchers answer these new challenges? This essay sketches the trajectory of change of modern old-style poetry and new-style poetry in response to the changing times and to each other, discusses how these changes embody larger cultural shifts, and addresses the role played by scholars and critics in the process. It argues that the gap between old-style poetry and new-style poetry is closing in interesting ways, and that scholarship on modern poetry is not about deciding the literary canon or predicting what comes next, but about constantly adjusting our understanding in the eternal process of becoming and realizing that the past is also changing owing to the changing perspective of the present.
