I expected a range of opinion on this. I don't think I would go so far as to call the poem free verse, since it does seem to have some sort of a pulse, however irregular. The language is colorful and charged. The only word choice that really bothers me is "items."
All that said, though, I think the poem is as windy as the Gros Ventre. It uses an over-blown, over-important style that fails to conceal the lack of any real purpose or inspiration. In the final line it degenerates into pure bathos. So I am with Len on this one.
I see no way forward in this sort of verse. It looks to me like flypaper for mediocrity.
Alan Sullivan
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