[Roger Slater]

I really don't care if someone wants to call this a "sonnet," but my own opinion is that having a "sonnet-type structure" does not, by itself, make a poem a sonnet. Lots of poems that no one would call a sonnet have coherence, movement, and something resembling a turn. My own view is that if the only reason we wonder about the sonnet-ness of a poem is because the poet decided to call it a sonnet, it's not a sonnet. Sonnets are not sonnets by fiat.

But I do like the poem very much, whatever its label. Still, I feel the middle three couplets could be syntactically sounder. Their contribution to the poem is a bit muddy, since it seems that you could leave them out and the remaining four couplets would hold together without them.