Abstract: From the establishment of vernacular poetry to the boom of colloquial poetry in the 1980s, the development of Chinese poetry suffered from the vicissitudes and challenges brought by wars and political changes. And this becomes an approach to reflect on modern poetry over the past century. Vernacular poetry was given birth by force under the great impact of the western discourse and the great demands for huge social changes, and was guided by historical evolutionism and instrumental rational thinking, hence vernacular poetry's born deficiencies. And later it was deformed and finally reduced into verbal violence due to harsh war environment and extreme political context. In the 1980s, vernacular poetry came out from the shadow of excessive politicization and thus colloquial poetry was awakened by the efforts of the third-generation poets. Since the 1990s, post-colloquial poetry has become conscious of its identity and theory, against the cultural background of awakened and foregrounded popular position. A review of and reflection on the history of modern poetry over the past century reveal that modern Chinese colloquial verse basically represents an indigenous form full of vitality and Chinese poetic wisdom.

Key words: vernacular poetry, colloquial poetry, colloquial style of verse, history of modern poetry, reflection