ABSTRACT
When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Chinese poets found it difficult to continue the debate on the artistic issues of poetry as the country was under the real threat of foreign occupation. Among the influential poets, Zang Kejia and Tian Jian are both known for their popular patriotic verses during the war. When a number of young poets such as Zang Kejia and Tian Jian began writing about the brutal reality of the peasants' lives and the people suffering in the war in plain and clear vernacular, they were well received as leading a new form of patriotic literature. Zang Kejia has also produced a large number of political poems in his long literary career. Tian Jian's war poetry is a literary record of one of the most dreadful moments in the modern history of China, when the individual has lost all possible means of pursuing a meaningful life under the huge national crisis.
