17 pages • 34 minutes read
Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
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Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter” is a five-line, single stanza poem written in free verse. The line lengths and beats vary and do not employ a consistent pattern. There is no rhyme in the poem. Prior to writing Silence in the Snowy Fields—the collection in which this poem is included—Bly studied formal poetry with fixed meter and rhyme. However, he felt this was restrictive as he became more concerned with the poem’s structure rather than its feeling.
“Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter” does not lack deliberate order. Bly uses potent imagery and significant line breaks to add meaning and emphasis. He builds the reader’s understanding of his landscape with repetitive mentions of temperature and weather. The word cold is used in Lines 1 and 3, while references to snow occur in Lines 1, 2, and 4. This may not create a measured rhythm, the repetition anchors the poem. The reader zeroes in on the same images the speaker does. In this way, the reader is engaged in the action of the journey with the speaker. The juxtaposition of the speaker’s declarative observations of the landscape (Lines 1-3) with the emotional weight of their thoughts (Lines 4-5) is purposeful and enhances Bly’s theme regarding the benefit of contemplation. A fixed form’s concentration on rhyme or meter might have diminished the surprise that occurs in Line 4 when the formerly objective speaker announces his love of the snowy night’s solitude. The long lines of uneven beats assist the leaping flow of the speaker’s thoughts in the poem.
Thermal Imagery
Thermal imagery—images of temperature—are essential to the depiction of landscape in Bly’s poem. The snowy weather is emphasized throughout, clearly delineating that the poem takes place in winter (or possibly late fall/early spring). Bly’s setting—a thermal one—grounds the poem: “It is a cold and snowy night” (Line 1). With this, Bly indicates the temperature is at least 32 degrees and that it is winter. The time of day—“night” (Line 1)—suggests it is even colder. The speaker observes the unoccupied street and its “swirls of snow” (Line 2). This second thermal image adds to the chill of the night since people stay indoors when the wind raises the snow. Thermal imagery is again used as the mailbox handle feels like “cold iron” (Line 3). In Line 4, the speaker mentions for the second time that it’s a “snowy night.” Lines 1-4 all contain at least one mention of something having to do with temperature. This setting contributes to the solitary nature of the night during which the speaker mails their letter.
End-Stops
The use of lineation—where the lines end—is essential for the effectiveness of any poem. In “Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter,” each line is a declarative statements ending with a period, or end-stop. This has several purposes. First, the end-stops create an authoritative voice in which the speaker is less likely to be doubted. Their observations are viewed as objective facts, so when the reader is faced with the imaginative leap of emotion in Line 4, it’s taken as completely logical because it is constructed in the same way.
Second, the end-stops function as containers for specific images. The reader’s attention stays focused on the image contained by the end-stop before moving on to the next image. For example, Line 2 reads, “[t]he only things moving are swirls of snow” (Line 2). The reader concentrates on this snapshot of snow before moving to the separate image of the mailbox in Line 3. Thus, a montage is created, with the lens moving across the landscape, zeroing in to offer close-ups. This gives the poem a cinematic quality.
Third, the use of the end-stop emphasizes the last word or phrase before the period: “snowy night” (Line 1), “deserted” (Line 1), “snow” (Line 2), “cold iron” (Line 3), “snowy night” (Line 4), and “time” (Line 5). This highlights Bly’s focus on the snow, the evening, the solitude, and passage of time—all thematically crucial elements.
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