These vigorous Spenserian stanzas take us up the Florida coast, starting with th dismal spring-breakers of Duval Street, and I think the dense rhyming helps to convey the too-muchness of it all. The ambience of each locus is well-conveyed, and there is wit throughout, especially in the last stanza where, having invoked Ponce de Leon, the poem remebers that “ponce” is slang for “pimp.” The faults I find mostly have to do with forced rhyme: in the first stanza “addressed” and “quest” seem strained, and in the 4th stanza “complete” won’t do at all. However, “indiscrete,” meaning “all alike,” is rather classy.
~Richard Wilbur
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