“Poets, What Can We Do?”

The present paper investigates poetry written in China on the theme of COVID-19 pandemic following outbreak January 2020, considered both as a social phenomenon and literary texts. analysis is primarily interested considering impact poetry’s interaction with reality. In order to do so, essay follows two trajectories. Firstly, it explores public role performed by poets nationwide popular mobilization that sustained party-state’s effort curb epidemic, strong emphasis practice, specifically time crisis, outlined state authors themselves. Secondly, close reading selected texts shows heterogeneity standpoints adopted their individual understandings during China’s anti-COVID effort, especially relation “master narrative” advanced state. demonstrates final configuration was made possible Chinese longstanding tradition responsibility, transgression boundaries between official unofficial scenes, “amateur” “professional” authors, instrumental promote poets’ engagement.