Microporous organic polymers that have three-dimensional connectivity stemming from monomers with tetrahedral or tetrahedron-like geometry can have high surface areas and strong fluorescence. There are however few examples of such polymers based on hindered biaryls, and their fluorescence has not been studied. Hypothesizing that the contortion in a hindered biphenyl moiety would modulate the optical properties of a polymer built from it, we synthesized a meta-enchained polyphenylene from a 2,2ʹ,6,6ʹ-tetramethylbiphenyl-based monomer, in which the two phenyl rings are nearly mutually perpendicular. The polymer was microporous with SBET = 495 m2 g−1. The polymer absorbed near-UV light and emitted blue fluorescence despite the meta-enchainment that would have been expected to break the conjugation. A related copolymer, synthesized from 2,2ʹ,6,6ʹ-tetramethylbiphenyl-based and unsubstituted biphenyl-based monomers, was microporous but not fluorescent. © The Author(s) 2024.