Letters from Yorkshire - Maura Dooley

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7 Terms

1
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he saw the first lapwings return and came

  • Lapwings are migratory birds so this may be a metaphor for his hop that the speaker will return

  • The lapwings suggest the coming of spring time

  • the allusion of springtime establishes a hopeful tone

  • metaphor for continuity and regeneration; enduring seasons and the enduring love between the people

  • arrival of something joyful (the birds) reminds him of her and prompts him to write to her

2
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his knuckles singing // as they reddened in the warmth

  • personification reflects joy in approaching seasons and the connection of nature

  • colour imagery: red is a passionate and warm colour which shows that the speaker unconsciously memorises every detail of him and this hsows how much affection she has for him

3
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my heartful of headlines // feeding words onto a blank screen

  • alliteration: emphasises her awareness of her heart and feelings even though her job is empty and uninspiring

  • sarcasm: highlights her struggle to find meaning in her work, contrasting her emotional depth with the mundane task of writing as headline are unlikely to reach her heart

  • ‘feeding…’ verb/ figurative language: contrasts speakers lifestyle of feeding words to the man feeding people potatoes and implying that her work seems artificial comapred to his closeness to nature

  • present participle: shows immedicy and ongoing nature of their lives - they live and work in different ways yet are spiritually bonded

  • ‘blank’ adjective: contrasts to his ‘knuckles singing’, has dull and lifeless connotations, shows her positive feelings of his attituded but negative feelings towards her own life.

4
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pouring air and light into an envelope

verb: creates a sense of free-flowing, may be a lavish metaphor for their relationship, he nourishes her through sending the letters, this shows that there is a consistent flowing interaction between them

metaphor: denotes the basic necessities to live meaning that oxygen is vital for ones survival and compares him to someone who is vital to her survival to keep her thriving. Shows that the practical concrete nature of his work transforms to something spiritual

noun: contrasts with light as envelopes are limited. It reflects how the envelop encapsulates emotions and compresses them into something tangible

5
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our souls tap out messages across the icy miles

interesting contrast of the metaphysical imagery of 'souls' (something intangible, felt perhaps to some degree but not able to be physically 'grasped' or 'realised') and the 'tap' of messages (something very literal and material); the consonance of 'tap' , creating a hard plosive sound that reflects the unsentimental, cold use of technology, juxtaposes the assonance of 'souls', which are flowing and unrestricted. Is Dooley saying that she wishes she were able to just drift as a soul might, unimpeded, towards the person she misses?

6
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CONTEXT

  • grew up in Bristol and worked in Yorkshire for 24 years

  • poem comes from the collection ‘Sound Barrier’ in which critics say she combines detailed domesticity with lyrical beauty and that she has ability to enact and find images for complex feelings

  • many of her poems contain the theme of communication which may also be a result of Dooley’s connections around the country

7
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STRUCTURE

  • tercets: three line stanza - three is an odd number this gives a sense of imbalance of the relationship

  • enjambment: creates broken fractured structure making poem difficult to read, reflects the nature of their relationship

  • ceasura: pause, separation and stop, reflects pause of the physical/metaphorical distance between the people “me,his”

  • free verse: lack of cohesion, unity and togetherness which would be otherwise seen in consistent rhyme and end rhymes

  • internal rhyme: there are half rhymes throughout the poem, suggests problematic nature as it isn’t full and perfect like the relationship, the last stanza has full rhyme which gives a sense of optimism that the two are becoming together

  • moving towards positivity is seen through structural place of pronouns as the shift from “he” which is impersonal and distant to “You” which is more personal suggests the growing closeness