Sincerely expressing one’s soul and pursuing individual liberation are the basic artistic characteristics of Xu Zhimo’s poetry. His poems, especially the lyric poems with great influence, have reached a very high artistic level, and their artistic beauty is mainly reflected in the following aspects.
1. Exquisite conception and novel imagery. In "The Joy of Snowflakes", the poet calls himself "Snowflake" and uses the image of flying snowflakes to cleverly convey his persistent pursuit of true love and beautiful ideals. "She Is Asleep" uses rich imagination to describe the sleeping state of the beloved, using four consecutive words: "white lotus" under the starlight, "blue conch smoke" in the incense burner, noisy "strings", and flying "pink butterflies". This is a richly poetic image, creating a wonderful artistic conception; the popular "Sayang Nala" has only four lines in total, and the central image is a shy water lotus, which is used to describe the gentle and affectionate demeanor of Japanese girls, which is very appropriate. It is expressive, pure and flawless, and charming. The exquisite conception and new imagery make this short poem contain endless connotations and show the unique soft and graceful charm of Xu Zhimo's poetry. "Baby" uses a woman who is about to give birth to long for the baby in her belly, symbolically expressing the author's yearning for bourgeois ideals, and the conception is unconventional.
2. The rhythm is harmonious and full of musical beauty. Xu Zhimo believes that "the secret of a poem is the evenness and flow of its syllables", and syllables are the blood of poetry. In his large number of four-line-one-section lyric poems, Xu Zhimo often uses techniques such as overlapping, repetition, parallelism, and duality. In the short four lines at the beginning of ", "gently" is repeated three times, resulting in a lingering and brisk rhythm, adding a sense of melody in addition to the sense of rhythm. In terms of rhyme, he often adopts the rhyming method of Western poetry. "Sir! Sir!" uses follow-up rhyme (AABB), "To Find a Star" uses embrace rhyme (ABBA), and "He's Afraid of Saying It" uses cross-rhyme (ABAB), making the poem's rhyme change in harmony.
3. Organized and flexible. As a representative poet of the New Metrical School, Xu Zhimo pays great attention to poetic form and composition. Although his poems are mostly composed of four lines and one verse, on the whole, the stanza pattern, composition, syntax and rhyme are all different. It is too rigid and pays attention to the form of poetry, but it can not be constrained by it. There are changes in the arrangement, showing flexible and diverse styles. Each stanza of "Farewell to Cambridge" has four lines, with alternate lines rhyming; the first and third lines are slightly shorter, about six characters, and the second and fourth lines are slightly longer, about eight characters; the lines of poetry are regularly staggered in length, and large sections are neat and well-proportioned. "The Inspiration of Love" is 396 lines long, "Shayanala" has 4 lines at the end, "A Night in the Emerald Green" has 74 lines in one section, and "The Train Caught the Rails" has only 2 lines in one section, which shows its uniqueness. There are many changes in syntax and composition.
4. The words are gorgeous and the style is bright. Xu Zhimo's poems are full of imagination, which can naturally be expressed in the richness of words and the gorgeousness and richness of rhetoric. "She is Asleep", "Pipa in the Alley at Midnight" and "Autumn Moon" are all charming and beautiful, with high aesthetic value. "In Sickness" uses seven metaphors (metaphors) in one breath to describe the mood and momentary memories of illness. The golden willows in the setting sun, the rainbow reflected on the bottom of the pond, the green cattails in the water, the colorful stars... weave into a brightly colored picture, giving "Farewell to Cambridge" a unique gentle and delicate style.