A Windfall Light

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Questions and Answers

What inspired “A Windfall Light”?

I took a six-week trip to England, Scotland,and Wales (with a side trip to Paris) with my University of Windsor roommate the summer I turned 21. Then, many years later,while revisiting Windsor, I saw that the house we had rented as students had been torn down. There was only a vacant lot. The poem is, among other things, a reflection on youth and the passing of time.

What poetic techniques did you use in “A Windfall Light”?

Imagery, alliteration, metaphor, simile, allusion. (The words in italics are from Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill” which was–and is–one of my favourite poems.)


This poem “A Windfall Light” originally appeared in Women, City, Wilderness. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 146 (Autumn 1995): 7-8.

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