This paper examines Ha Jin as a poet by giving particular attention to a collection of his poems A Distant Center in relation to his novel A Free Life and explores how his migrant aesthetics is reflected in his poetic world. Jin began his writing career as a poet and published four books of poetry collection in English so far. Yet he is famed as a novelist, for his novels are often highly regarded with prestigious literary awards in the United States. Interestingly, in his highly autobiographical or personal novel A Free Life, Jin describes the main character Nan Wu’s emergence and growth as a poet, through a narrative of his struggle to become a poet and also adding extracts from his poetry journal and a collection of his poems in the epilogue. My critical attention is given to such a poetic pursuit in Jin’s novel. Jin’s migrant aesthetics is expounded with the help of his essay collection The Writer as Migrant that provides the reflections of his literary pursuit as a migrant writer. The paper gives a detailed examination of Jin’s A Distant Center and considers how his poetic aesthetics of migration is rendered in relation to the poetic pursuit depicted in A Free Life. This study intends to offer a full study of Ha Jin as a poet to which little critical attention has been paid.