“Advent Windows” is an artful sestina in which each stanza focuses on yet another figure typical of winter. There is some inherent tedium in any sestina, and I think the “Hiawatha” tetrameter, though faithfully maintained, is at times so rigid as to be inexpressive. Because the key words are all descriptive of snowfall, it is hard for them to have fresh senses as the recur, but the poem does pretty well nonetheless.. I very much like the way “feathers” is refreshed in the frosty window of stanza 3, and again in the blazing phoenix of stanza 5, and I admire what happens to “falling” in stanza six.
~Richard Wilbur
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