Jinhe is one of the most controversial poets in modern poetry. Liang Qichao, Chen Yan and Hu Shi all praised him, but critics such as Hu Xiansu were very harsh on him. This is due to the innovative spirit of his poems. Jinhe experienced the Opium War and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising. "The death of weapons is not just a rumor, but a cover" (Tan Xian's Preface to Poems in Laiyunge), so his poems are realistic in content, but complicated in ideological tendency. All the poems he wrote before the Taiping Rebellion were lost, and later he recalled and rewritten more than 100 poems. Among them, Six Poems of the Chronicle of the Besieged City, which wrote "The Battle of the British Invading the River", satirized and criticized the ruling class's knees and knees, and showed the patriotic spirit of anti-aggression; Yin Zi Qian and Alfalfa Head reflect cruel exploitation and show sympathy and concern for people's livelihood. Most of his existing poems were written after the Taiping Rebellion broke out, and many chapters were devoted to attacking the rebels and writing about his family's sense of exile. However, due to his deep feelings about the corruption of the Qing army, some poems, such as Four Poems of New Yuefu before the Army, The Battle of Double Worship, The Journey of Lanling's Daughter, The Journey of the Fierce Woman Huangwan Pear, etc., have effectively exposed the crimes of extortion and mutilation of the people by the Qing army. He also has some erotic poems, which reflect his dissolute life.
Jinhe's poetry has a certain creative spirit in art. He is good at narrating in ancient Chinese, not sticking to the traditional style, but gurgling and dripping with prose sentence patterns and plain language. In his narrative poems, he often intercepts expressive life scenes, highlights characters, and uses exaggerated and humorous pen and ink to make his poems contain profound irony and develop classical narrative poems. His grandfather was Wu's cousin, and during Tongzhi period, he wrote a postscript for The Scholars, and Jin He's satirical art was deeply inspired and influenced by the book. Liang Qichao, a contemporary of Jin He, Huang Zunxian and Kang Youwei, called his poems "artistic conception, meteorology and verve, seeking for those who have never met their spouses in Qing Dynasty" (Preface to Poetry in Autumn Pavilion) and "vigorous and outstanding" (Preface to Qing Dynasty). Jinhe's prose is not widely circulated, but it is also very unique. Full of pen sense, good at dyeing trivial details, making pen and ink vivid and touching. I just like to use obscure words, ancient words and loanwords, which are quite inconvenient for readers.