長詩的寫作是對詩人極大的考驗。長詩可以視為詩人能否跨越門檻成為主要詩人的關鍵。短詩瞬間的創意在長詩的書寫裡，只是一個詩句的開始，需要意象的敘述能力來展延。但所謂展延，不是將文字稀釋，而是在維持相同的字質時，行數的增加能強化詩的量感與嚴肅性。在閱讀的感覺上，短詩與長詩最大的不同可能是：前者是一首好詩，但後者可能是一首「宏大」的詩。從細節觀照，臺灣現代詩長詩展現了繽紛的美學風貌。有的以組詩的型態呈現，有的是歷史的再書寫，有的是以意象的環練構築敘述，有的以文本互植推展，有的以詩的小說化強調詩的戲劇性。而二十一世紀洛夫約兩、三千行的長詩〈漂木〉再度擴展了長詩的可能的疆域。

A long poem poses a great challenge to a poet. A long poem can serve as a threshold on which a writer can step over to become a major poet in literary history. For a long-poem writer, the creative spark in a short poem just initiates a poetic sentence; the moment of creation is to be stretched in narrative. But extension doesn’t mean the quantity is increased at the expense of quality. To be qualified as long-poem writer, one has to maintain the quality of every line while the increased written space imparts a sense of weight and seriousness of poetry. A short poem may be a good poem, but rarely a great one; however, a long poem can be “felt” to be both good and great. Long poems display varieties in Taiwan modern poetry: some are composed as a poetical sequence; some re-write history and legend; some build their narrative on the linkage of images; some are created by the interplay of texts; some take form of novel to dwell on its dramatic force. And with Lo-Fu’s “Drifting Wood” at the beginning of this century, the possible field of long poem is again explored and expanded.