Gerald Stern, "Dog That I am"

Stern is a perfectly middling poet. Never actually wrote a poem anyone remembers, yet persists in anthologies like this one. My main objection to this poem is that the line has no integrity. Five out of sixteen lines--nearly a third--end in prepositions, but there is no syncopation, since the line is never established in the first place as a unit worth paying attention to. There are no memorable phrases, nothing of real poetic value here that I can see. The poem only makes sense if you read his explanation in the back, hence it is a poem made to be read at a poetry reading, where the explanation does the real work. Not even the explanation is a solid piece of writing.