Poetry, as the highest form of language art, carries a profound national cultural heritage and unique aesthetic imagery. Cultural imagery is the soul of poetry, a condensed expression of national history, philosophical concepts, lifestyle, and emotional experiences. Chinese and English poetry belong to two major cultural systems, and their mechanisms of generating cultural imagery, expression methods, and acceptance contexts have fundamental differences, which pose significant challenges to poetry translation. The theory of equivalent translation aims to achieve similar or equivalent effects in the minds of readers between the translation and the original text. However, when dealing with images that contain unique cultural connotations, absolute equivalence is often difficult to achieve. This paper approaches the issue from the perspective of cultural imagery, deeply exploring the limits of achieving equivalence in Chinese and English poetry translations, translation strategies, and philosophical connotations.