Robert Bly’s poem “Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter” brings loneliness to the masses. The poem’s accessibility allows readers to see the warmth that can be found in an impenetrable cold.
Stringing Together the Cold
The 5 lines of the poem act as a sort of string quintet with each line playing its part in the musicality of wintertime: sparse, effective, and chilling in its eerie simplicity. Winter can be a season of isolation. Oftentimes, wintertime is dull, gray, “cold and snowy” (line 1). The climate paired with the ephemerality of the title, “Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter”, evoke a frosty reader response. The icy sensation is increased because “main street is deserted” and “The only things moving are swirls of snow” (lines 1, 2). Furthermore, the vertical pronoun reaches new heights of isolation in lines 3-5 because there is nothing else to shoot for on “this snowy night” (line 4). Each line vibrates with significance.
Driving through a Winter Wonderland
The imagery of the poem engulfs the reader with cold, bringing the audience along for the drive. The repetition of the words “cold” and “snow” allow the reader to feel “the mailbox door” and “its cold iron” (line 3). Notably, the speaker of the poem does not mention wearing gloves--the omission provides an intense empathetic reaction in the reader. Bly’s speaker wants to share his experience, and the sensory details he provides facilitates this sharing.
Tonal Bridging in “Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter”
The speaker’s tone shifts bridging the first 3 lines of the poem with the emotional cadence in the final 2 lines. The “snowy night” is not able to freeze the speaker’s emotions as he unearths the extraordinary rooted in the ordinary. The speaker finds “love” in the “privacy” that the winter provides him. A dark night without roaming cars, wandering adolescents, and drunken vagrants becomes the focal point while the speaker searches for another reason to be “Driving around” after mailing his letter (line 5). By moving the focal point from the “cold” to the “privacy [he] love[s]”, the speaker of the poem shines a light on “a cold and snowy night”.
Touching What No One Can See
“Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter” in the hubbub of the contemporary everyday may seem like a major inconvenience to most folks. Maybe the speaker is just an oddball searching for fullness within emptiness, and no one should have cause to care. Maybe. But, maybe, a moonlit drive or walk or ride through “swirls of snow” could provide more answers than the emails that no one refuses to check. Maybe the best part of life could be when one reaches total consciousness “Driving around” wasting “more time” (line 5). Why not look for what isn’t there?
Source:
- Bly, Robert. "Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter." Silence in the Snowy Fields. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1962. Print.
Matthew Birdsall - Matt is a reader, writer, teacher, lover, and liver, not necessarily in that order. He is eager to read your comments and hopes you enjoy ...
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