Ai Qing's poetic journey has gone through many stages. His early works showed the vagrancy of vagrants, which was greatly influenced by the western modern symbolism and impressionism poems he came into contact with during his study in France. In 1930s, he joined the China Left-wing Artists Union and was arrested and imprisoned soon. This experience made him pay attention to the plight of farmers in China, and thus he wrote the famous long poem Dayan River-My Nanny. After 1937, he traveled to Wuhan, Shanxi, Guilin, Chongqing and other places to participate in anti-Japanese and national salvation activities. In the 1940s, he went to Yan 'an, attended the Yan 'an Forum on Literature and Art, and edited Poetry Magazine. After 1949, he served as deputy editor-in-chief of People's Literature. But in 1957, he was wrongly classified as a rightist and forced to work in Heilongjiang and Xinjiang. During the Cultural Revolution, he was criticized many times. It was not until 1976+00 months later that he regained the right to write, and served as the vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association and the China Center of the International PEN. 1died of illness at 4 am on May 5, 1996 at the age of 86.

To sum up, Ai Qing's poetic journey is full of twists and turns and challenges, but his poetic works have left an important mark on the history of modern literature in China.