In his essay "Spring Flowers Don't Dare Hope for Dew," the writer Song Zelai notes that back then there were numerous native Taiwanese poets, but hardly any were trying to write poetry in Taiwanese. When Xiang Yang published collections of poems in Taiwanese, he was breaking new ground.
作家宋澤萊在〈評向陽的〈春花不敢望露水〉〉一文中直言，在那個年頭，台灣本土詩人如過江之鯽，可是幾乎沒有人嘗試用台語寫詩，向陽出版台語詩集，是破天荒的事，在台灣文學史上可說是先知先覺者。