I would read the poem as a "speech". A speech employs a lot of the tricks of poetry (this one uses rhyme here and there). In speech making you stress words for effect, not to satisfy a form. You are interested in result, NOT process. Three good speech makers could read this three somewhat different ways and it would sound alright each way--"Formal" poets attempting to read this would screw it up everytime. To make a joke--this is not "free verse" it is "free stress". In other words---this aint page poetry---it is a loose script for voice---the speaker (or the actor of the poem) gets a lot of leaway here. The author may have had his own way of doing this "speech" but what we are left with is a loose script (that's what he gave us on the page whether he knew it or not--a loose script). Add that new term to your critical vocabulary. (Poets have always "done" first and critics have "named" after the poets get done doing.) A recording of the poet doing his own poem would give us an "exact script" (unless it were a performance poem then we would need a videotape) but here on the page the poet did not bother to stress mark anything so we are left with a loose script of his speech. Don't beat your brains out over something that is not poetry by a stringent definition. Recognize it as a speech.
PS---Actually I dont think it is very good.
[This message has been edited by ewrgall (edited March 04, 2001).]
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