Letters from Yorkshire - Maura Dooley

Letters from Yorkshire - Maura Dooley

1. Context

   • Lived in Yorkshire before moving to London
   • Could be her own experiences

2. Key Themes

   • Nature
   • Longing
   • Distance
   • Connection
   • Admiration

3. Feelings & Attitudes

   • She values his closeness to nature and how he experiences things that she doesn’t in her everyday life
   • She seems to long his lifestyle, as she finds it as romantic and fulfilling
   • The narrator reflects on their different lives- the man lives in Yorkshire and spends time outside, whereas, she lives a long away in a city, and spends her time inside writing
   • She feels as though he lives in a different world, but the letters he writes help her to feel connected to him and his way of life.

4. Structure

   • Enjambment
     • ‘seeing the seasons/ Turning’
       • Free verse Makes the poem flow like natural speech or a letter Allows lines and stanzas to flow into each other
         • Continuous movement reflects the way that the seasons are constantly changing They are so connected that talking is natural.
   • Middle stanza
     • ‘Is your life more real because you dig and sow?’
       • Rhetorical question
         • Reflects how the issue is at the centre of what the poem is about

5. Physical Verbs

   • Series of active verbs
     • ‘digging’ ‘planting’
       • Describe the letter writer’s physical work in his garden
         • They are ordinary but satisfying actions Emphasise his connection with nature
   • ‘planting potatoes’
     • Alliteration
       • Emphasises that it is a repetitive and ordinary action

6. Contrasts

   • The narrator presents her lifestyle as different to the letter writer’s He works outside whilst she sits at a computer Whilst he sees his life as ordinary, she romanticises it and sees her own life as inferior
   • Alliteration
     • Emphasises the contrast between her ‘heartful of headlines’ and his ‘seeing the seasons’
       • The word ‘headlines’ sounds melodramatic and artificial compared to the natural ‘seasons’
   • ‘feeding words onto a blank screen’
     • Figurative language – ‘feeding words’
       • Creates a contrast between her feeding words and his feeding people with potatoes Her actions seem artificial compared to his experiences with na
         • Computer shows the contrast between their lifestyles and professions ‘blank screen’ sounds lifeless and empty In comparison to his ‘singing’ knuckles
   • ‘pouring air and light’
     • More natural that the words she writes He writes to her about his day-to-day life
       • She romanticises it by describing in terms of ‘air and light’ Almost a magical description

7. Language about Communication

   • Communication bridges the distance between them Emphasises the things they have in common
   • ‘our souls tap out messages’
     • Figurative language Spiritual language
       • Shows that they have a deep and meaningful connection Suggests their connection is almost spiritual
   • ‘who sends me word of that other world’
     • ‘word’ and ‘world’
       • Alliteration & Assonance
         • Make these words sound similar but they are also different This reflects how his words make the speaker feel close to his world, but also reminds her that she’s distant from him
   • ‘watching the same news in different houses’
     • Communication brings them together, despite the physical distance between them
     • Hints that their lives aren’t so difference This shared experiences makes her feel closer to hi