Letters from Yorkshire

Context

Maura Dooley

• Worked in Yorkshire

• Lives in London

The poem talks about the trouble these 2 people face with having a long distance relationship. The distance between them is creating strain in their relationship. It’s unclear what type of relationship it is, parental or romantic but it doesn’t really matter.

Key Themes

• separation

• strong connection

Form & Structure

• stanzas are mostly in tercets (3 lines), which creates a sense of imbalance as this is a poem about 2 people. It doesn’t resolve in the end, perhaps implying that even by the end of the poem the problems haven’t been solved.

• the use of enjambment over stanzas creates a broken structure which could reflect the imperfection of their relationship

• the use of caesuras separate the pronouns causing a distance between the 2 people in the relationship

• the poem uses free verse, this lack of rhyme could be used to create a lack of cohesion, which could reflect the lack of unity between the 2 people

• there is occasional internal rhyme within the lines of the poem, often half rhyme. Perhaps this use of half rhyme suggests a problematic nature within the relationship, it’s not perfect. In the last stanza their is a use of full rhyme between “light” and “night”, which could suggest near the end there is a sense of unity.

• The pronoun for the other person changes from “he” to “you” suggesting that they’re growing in closeness

Imagery

lapwings

these birds migrate and so could show the hope of the other person for Dooley to return back to Yorkshire.

“knuckles singing as they reddened in the warmth”

this use of personification could present the joy of the man as he writes to the woman, even though there is a lot of suffering and negativity within the poem there are still glimpses of positivity and happiness.

the poet uses very positive language for the mans work, but for the woman’s there is a very negative view e.g. “feeding words onto a blank screen”