I have enjoyed watching this poem evolve, and following your thinking on the revisions. I think you have really strengthened it.
I would vote for a comma after “Oh” in the first line, but I tend to show my boomerishness in my overuse of commas, so take that advice for what it’s worth.
I especially like the change from “dilapidated” > “illusion-bearing” > “illusionary for two reasons. First, “dilapidated” in its Latin roots literally means “with stones falling apart.” Since I don’t imagine this window frame being made of stones, the image is a little blurry. And as Sam pointed out, if it were really dilapidated, it’s hard to imagine it still containing glass. Second, the word “illusionary” is ambiguous in a good way. Does it modify the window frame itself, or is it a transferred epithet (hypallage) modifying the scene it frames, showing in the scene the personality of the speaker like a magic mirror?
Nice work, Alexandra.
Last edited by Glenn Wright; 04-26-2024 at 04:47 PM.
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