"digging" by Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, playwright, translator and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. "Digging" was part of his first collection of poems published in 1966. In the poem a reader could be aware that Mr. Heaney is talking in a reconciliatory way about what his father and grandfather did for living when he was young. They were farmers and he was admired of the skill they had, digging. According to the poem Mr. Heaney writes as if he does not have the ability to do what they do and he feels a loss there. But he will work as hard as they did with his pen instead of a spade to earn their respect. Perhaps the writer has a disability? Or is weak physically? Or just he has a big love for writing? No matter what is the reason, he is determined to make up for it. There are certain aspects of poetry that a reader can find in the poem that would be discussed as well.

In the poem a reader could hear some sounds the poet describes in detail. For example in the second stanza Heaney mentions how the sound of his father digging in the morning makes him to look down on his window. Also when he describes how his grandfather was working at the bog to "cut more turf". The speaker as we know is Mr. Heaney and the way he writes this poem anyone can sense the sad and the melancholic tone of his words "By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man". Heaney wrote this poem thinking perhaps that ordinary people could feel what he felt. He shares his thoughts when he looks back on the hard work that his father and grandfather did to get food for the family. The poem is a free verse with eight stanzas containing two couplets one dedicated to his father and the other to his grandfather, there is no consistent rhyme scheme, although it has some rhymes: "thumb" and "gun" in the first two lines; "sound", "ground" and "down" in the second stanza. The plan that Heaney has related to the title, it is understandable after reading the poem carefully. There are three generations involved in digging: his grandfather that dug turf, his father that dug up potatoes and Heaney is digging up his memories and his past. As a consequence, the title is good, because a reader can guess somehow about what the writer is going to talk about