Letters from Yorkshire - Maura Dooley

• Written by....

  Maura Dooley
• Themes:

  Longing, Reminiscing, Connections
• Tones:


  Melancholic, Rustic, Nostalgic
• Context:

  Autobiographical poem about Dooley's life as she spent 3 years living in Yorkshire before moving to London
• The relationship between the man and women in the poem is...

  ambiguous, there are debates that suggest it is her father or a lover, but the main relationship is between Narrator and the rural lifestyle
• Dooley was born in...

  1957 in Cornwall
• Poem Summary:

  Narrator speaks about friend living in countryside whom she exchanges letters with, and she reminisces about rural life as she now lives in the city
• Big Ideas:

  Relationships and connections can be maintained through words
• "Still, its you who sends me...

  word of that other world"
• "our souls tap out...

  messages across the icy miles"
• "our souls tap out messages across the icy miles"

  - Collective pronoun 'our' shows togethers

  - Pathetic fallacy sets a cold tone to imply resentment towards distance, or has negative connotations but Dooley doesn't allow it to affect communication

  - 'messages' falls into lexical field of communnication
• "breaking ice...


  on a waterbutt"
• "breaking ice on a waterbutt, clearing a path through the snow"

  - Idea of a 'path' could allude to him knowing what he wants to do with his life, while she is uncertain as she is adapting to urban life

  - noun 'snow' connotes purity suggesting she enjoys rural life and finds it pure
• "clearing a path...


  through snow"
• "pouring air and...


  light into an envelope"
• "pouring air and light into an envelope"

  - Metaphors conveys the joy she feels from their communication

  - Lexical Field of freedom and nature ('air','light') hints that these letters are a nice break from urban life, and creates a sense of hope/ hopeful tone as she feels trapped in Urban life
• "In February, digging in his garden, planting potatoes"

  - Temporal Deixis has an allusion to springtime which sets a hopeful tone and references the cyclicity of nature

  - Active verbs 'digging' and 'planting' show the respect she has for his work, and how they enjoy the activity

  - Plosive alliteration implies the manual labour, and could be emblematic of the frustration she feels of not being able to do it with him

  - asyndetic listing of his life shows the deep connection and how well they know each other, OR how rural lifestyle in ingrained into Dooley
• "digging in his...

  garden, planting potatoes"
• "his knuckles singing as...

  they reddened in the warmth"
• "his knuckles singing as they reddened in the warmth"

  - Enjambment used to reflect ongoing communication

  - Colour imagery creates a sense of warmth

  - Personification of the knuckles shows how rural lifestyle brings them both joy

  - verb 'singing' connotes joy, maybe suggests they enjoy talking to each other and have a close bond
• "me with a heartful of...

  headlines feeding words onto a blank screen"
• "me with a heartful of headlines feeding words onto a blank screen"

  - Metaphor and consonance sets a tone of reflection, or suggests speaker is fed up of urban life as the consonance resembles a sigh

  - Alliteration conveys urban life to be overbearing and exhausting; her new life is full and tense

  - verb 'feeding' the 'blank screen' seems somewhat robotic, depicting her lifestyle to be soulless, unlike him as his "knuckles are singing"
• "Is your life more...

  real because you dig and sow?"
• "Is your life more real because you dig and sow?"

  - Rhetorical question is reflective of their ongoing communication, and also shows how the speaker is questioning the meaning of their new lifestyle
• 3 Lined Tercets show...

  brief nature of communication that doesn't have to be long in strong relationships
• Tone Change in Last Stanza shows...


  a togetherness despite physical distance through communication
• In the last stanza, the focus changes from...

  the difference of their two lives to their togetherness despite the distance