Digging -by seamus Heaney The poet, Seamus Heaney uses simple words in his poem which can be beautifully described as well as clear to understand. The poem is basically about the poets respect and admiration of his father’s and grandfather’s hard work. The poem commences in the present tight form.
The poet, Heaney, is in his room, composing while his father is usually digging. It could be assumed the fact that poet can be near a window so that when he appears outside they can see his father digging. It is important to note that Heaney “looks down” at his father’s “straining rump”.
Literally his position at the window is raised but all of us also get the sense that Heaney for some reason feels better than manual function and that he will not like this sense. The next stanza takes us back to earlier years prior to his father’s retirement via farming: “Bends low, arises twenty years away”. We move effortlessly and beautifully from the present day flowerbed to the previous years potato drills. The poet then begins to explain his dad’s skills. The paradoxical “coarse boot nestled” shows the physicality and hardwork of digging alongside the love his father offers for it.
Heaney uses a two line stanza beginning with the exclamatory “By God” to take us further back to his grandfather’s looking skills. The exclamation as well as the conversational strengthen add a feeling of being with Heaney as he reminisces. Neatly Heaney has considered us back in his forefathers to show that working with the land has long been a tradition in the family. This individual has broken this cycle by choosing to become writer. The next stanza is a memory of visiting his grandfather as he cuts peat moss from the swamp, fen, marsh, quagmire.
The “bottle corked sloppily with paper” reflects Heaney’s clumsiness in practical things but also a different utilization of paper towards the one he could be really skilled at. This can be a family happy with their accomplishments which are tested by a spade and the capability to handle 1: “My grand daddy could slice more grass in a day than any other man on Toner’s bog”. The penultimate stanza reveals the down sides created by Heaney’s desire to write. The “curt cuts through living roots” are the razor-sharp edge in the spade slicing through living turf.
They are the sharp terms spoken because Heaney slashes his jewelry with his family’s traditional way of earning a living. And thus we come back to the beginning lines of the poem with the significant change from “as snug being a gun” to “I’ll get with it”. Heaney acknowledges that his skill which has a pen is comparable to that of his forefathers with a spade. He also realizes that he can continue the love for experienced work with the land through his publishing. Just as his grandfather was “digging down and straight down for the good turf” therefore will Heaney dig down and down for the good stuff that makes his poems so delightful.
