24. Rachel Blau DuPlessis, "Draft 55: Quiptych"

This poem was a chore to get through. I could easily quote effective lines and whole stanzas, but the whole is rather diffuse: garrulous, repetitive, a wee bit pretentious. Some bad puns don't help it. I'm having difficulty identifying the tone. It's supposed to be about "a random gathering of things insignificant in themselves" (Herakleitos), so the problem is in letting the beauty of this randomness shine through. What I see instead is a lot of talking around and about the problem. It's a good effort, promising enough in spots to merit an 8 out of 10.