 He helped to develop the five-character "shi" poetry form which had just newly developed with the Jian'an poets, but he moved it away from its initial starkly realistic descriptions of particular scenes which could be right before the poets' eyes towards more generalized, abstract, and symbolic poetic statement.Ruan Ji also developed the nature theme, focusing on "the passing of time and the cycle of the seasons", which lead towards the death of the individual.Ruan Ji was also used to deploy the imagery of birds as symbols of freedom and ability to escape their given situation.