Changming Yuan is a Chinese Canadian poet, writer, editor, translator, and publisher whose work explores language, migration, visual form, parallel structures, and cultural memory. He grew up in rural China, began learning the English alphabet at nineteen, completed graduate degrees in English at the University of Saskatchewan, and later settled in Vancouver.
The magazine published Yuan’s Two Poems in Issue 40: Steeper Seesaws: Another Parallel Poem and SEPA/rated. The pair shows two distinct formal impulses: balanced verbal opposition and spatially divided language.
“Steeper Seesaws”
Steeper Seesaws builds a sequence of paired statements around repeated comparative structures. Income and morals, buildings and attention, wealth and joy, medicine and health, highways and perspective enter a series of sharply balanced relations.
The poem’s force comes from accumulation. Each line repeats a recognizable grammatical frame while changing the social or ethical field under examination.
“SEPA/rated”
SEPA/rated makes division visible on the page. Words are broken across two columns, leaving the reader to reconnect fragments across white space. Separation becomes both subject and reading action.
This use of typography places Yuan’s work alongside experimental poetry that treats arrangement, spacing, and lexical fracture as active parts of meaning.
Migration and language
Yuan’s literary career developed across Chinese and Canadian contexts. His later English-language writing carries the experience of migration, education, memory, and cultural translation into poetry and prose.
University of Saskatchewan records describe a career spanning poetry, fiction, essays, editing, publishing, tutoring, and translation. Yuan also co-founded the online literary publication Poetry Pacific with his son Allen Yuan.
Books and recognition
Yuan has published sixteen books of poetry alongside prose works. His poetry has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, as well as literary publications across many countries.
Readers following poets shaped by migration, multilingual experience, and formal experiment can continue through contemporary poets.
Magazine appearance
Issue 40 preserves Steeper Seesaws: Another Parallel Poem and SEPA/rated under Changming Yuan’s name.
Past Issues places the two poems within the magazine’s chronology.
Further reading
The University of Saskatchewan profiles Yuan’s literary life, education, books, and work with Poetry Pacific. A 2026 alumni feature documents his recent prose and continuing work in Vancouver.