As compared to the overall compilation of his poems exploring divisions or celebrating sex and intimate companionship, "Badlands and Outlands" is a meditation on a divided and partially formed personality, a possibly undependable sexually charged partner who is still aware of the potential for a way out of marital commitment. The narrator observes his habits and behaviors with their sometimes self-destructive drives (self-destructive in the sense that intimate trust is damaged by lust); he faces "not exhilaration,/ not imagery, [but] some other shore/ where celebrating stops […]" And yet, there is "…the sustaining presence / of Venus Janakosov" and, finally, his connecting attraction for her is "crested, empathic, vulgar." The poem, for all of its self-destructive plunging and reflection is a commitment to marriage resonating with fertility and ambiguity: "momentary undermined attentions, in Florence—/ the fatigue and vibrant tone,/ the sunflower's hole cragged with seeds, in Florence,/ the frame without angles, in Florence." Many poets confronting the limitations of lineation in poetry, while desiring a wider subject matter and freedom in the approach to style, have turned to the prose poem. In his craft statement on writing prose poetry Robbins noted, "I do not work in formal structures, but I have worked diligently to create 'free verse' and prose poem styles that retain the dynamics of what Whitman called 'the poetic quality'[…]" It is well known that Ford Maddox Ford and Ezra Pound believed poetry should be at least as well written as prose; the opposite is also true, especially in terms of sensitivity to sound, not to mention an active rhythmic phrasing flowing directly or erratically as emotional tone forces arrangements of meaning. Arguably, the collage technique of monologue, short fiction, prose poem, interior monologue, and vaudeville-influenced dialogue reflect an attraction to Chaucer's high mockery in "House of Fame", Bottom's dream from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", as well Shakespeare's other "clowns" in "Othello" and particularly the "philosophizing" clown in "King Lear". Robbins' first prose collection, "Parking Lot Mood Swing: Autobiographical Monologues and Prose Poetry", certainly displays an affinity with Sterne's enlightened absurdities and non-liner style in "Tristram Shandy". His prose poem essay in "Bear Flag Republic" notes with appreciation the writings of Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Young, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Thomas Bernhard, Stephen Dixon, and Kenneth Patchen of the previously noted "Journal of Albion Moonlight".