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By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up. For the good turf. Digging. Through living roots awaken in my head. But I’ve no spade to follow men like them. The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.
"Digging" is one of the most widely known poems by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney and serves as the opening poem of Heaney's debut 1966 poetry collection, Death of a Naturalist. It begins with the speaker hovering over a blank page with a pen, preparing to write.
Taken from Heaney's debut collection, 'Death of a Naturalist', 'Digging' is among his finest ever poems. The poem explores different forms of labour and examines how traditions remain resolutely the same even as the world changes around us.
A poem from Seamus Heaney’s 1966 collection Death Of A Naturalist, inspired by his Irish homeland’s potato farmers and his own family history.
When Seamus Heaney opened his debut poetry collection with “Digging,” he staked out a powerful claim for his future as a poet. Like Heaney himself, the poem’s speaker is a man whose family has roots in the rural landscapes of the Irish countryside.
Poem analysis of Seamus Heaney's Digging through the review of literary techniques, poem structure, themes, and the proper usage of quotes.
“Digging” is a poem by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. The poem centers a speaker who has chosen to pursue poetry as his vocation. Whereas his father and grandfather both made their living through agricultural labor, the speaker will metaphorically use his pen to “dig” through layers of history, memory, and meaning.
“Digging” by Seamus Heaney, first published in 1966 within his acclaimed debut collection Death of a Naturalist is distinguished by its vivid imagery, rhythmic cadence, and thematic exploration of familial legacy, tradition, and the poet’s connection to his rural upbringing.
By Seamus Heaney. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down. Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
‘Digging’: summary. In summary, ‘Digging’ sees Heaney reflecting on his father, who used to dig potato drills (shallow furrows in fields, into which the potato seeds can be planted) but now struggles to dig flowerbeds in his garden. The poet’s grandfather, he recollects, used to dig peat.