Poetry Discussion Week 1 - Seamus Heaney: Digging

[samsdmf]

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as 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
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.




This seemed a popular poem in the 'concept' thread I can think of no better poem to kick us off.

A Few Suggestions

- There is no right or wrong when you are discussing ideas, say what you feel!
-Dont feel daunted posting, I am sure most of the people here (including myself) have little to no experience in discussing poetry.
- The thread will probably flow better if we discussed blanket ideas of the whole poem (meanings, general analysis) first, then went into more detail after we have a good foundation to go on.
- This has never been done before so there is no set structure for us to go on, so I guess we should go with the flow

Some Info To Start Us Off
Heaney On Wikipedia

Some important things to note from the biography are that Heaney was born in Northern Ireland and has lived through the troubles.

Heaney was born the eldest of nine children at the family farmhouse called Mossbawn, near Castledawson, thirty miles to the north-west of Belfast, in Northern Ireland. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and a nationalist. His family moved to a bigger farm in nearby Bellaghy in 1953.

This aspect of Heaneys history is vital to bare in mind when looking into his poetry. it has been said many times before that great art derives from pain; Heaney lived through The Troubles in Ireland and (although not discussed in the Wiki article) actually lost several members of his family.


'Digging' is a heartfelt poem discussing the change in Ireland, going from a mainly agricultural rural nation to a developed industrial power. This development caused children to shy away from occupations that had been in family for generations.
In the poem Heaney shows pride in his family history, respecting the skill of his Father and Grandfather. He compares his skill as a poet to his fathers skill as a Farmer, concluding on a thought that Heaney has been able to earn a living as a writer due to his natural writing ability , rather than carrying on the family tradition

[thecincykiddo]

[ QUOTE ]


But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

...

In the poem Heaney shows pride in his family history, respecting the skill of his Father and Grandfather. He compares his skill as a poet to his fathers skill as a Farmer, concluding on a thought that Heaney has been able to earn a living as a writer due to his natural writing ability , rather than carrying on the family tradition

[/ QUOTE ]

Good start. I would add to this that Heaney feels cut off, like a piece of sod, from his lineage. The reference to the pen as a gun evokes foreign imagery. The soil, the planting of potatoes (hard work, if you've never done it) all collide to create a natural flow of life and what sustains it.

The pen is not hard: it is as snug as a gun. It reminds me of a quote from Trainspotting where Renton (McGregor) is talking to the audience about how some people might see criminal behaviour as "a doss, a soft option" when in reality it's hard work for little pay.

The resolution of the writer's grip on the pen by the end of the poem strikes me the most, then, because he chooses to accept that his lineage has been severed but that the pen and history can find a common ground.

[MyJunkIsYou]

I feel a great sense of something that is maybe not quite Shame, but definitely a self-consciousness of having broken from his family's tradition, and from the Irish culture's tradition of work as manual labor. The author is amazed at both the similarities and differences between the two kinds of "digging" - the raw working of the earth and the physicality thereof, as opposed to the abstract world of ideas and significance of creativity that is involved and necessary in writing poetry - yet at the same time, both are "digging" for something, both are trying to get below the surface and gather something which can then be sold for a modest living. Being a poet is no lucrative profession even when you're Seamus Heaney. In the way that writing can become a digging and a grinding to produce art not necessarily because you're inspired but because it's what on which your income, and beyond that, your livelihood depends - the author feels a strange connection to those other diggers.

[fyodor]

It's interesting that he begins by comparing a pen to a gun and ends by comparing it to a shovel. A hand gun has but one real purpose - to kill other people. A shovel is for work.

Does this say something about what his reasons were for choosing writing as a profession and what it has become? Even though writing is now just work, the middle stanzas show that you can take pride in work - no matter how menial.

So maybe writing hasn't turned out to be what he at first thought it would be, but it's still worth doing, and worth doing well.

[thecincykiddo]

i had wondered something similar myself. i had actually kind of thought that a man is as much a weapon as a gun if he lets himself be used like a weapon, and that the farming was a conscious choice (hence the pride)

they could have just as easily been off fighting some war.

i had also sort of thought of the writer's sense of the pen channeling his ancestors as the tools of his craft; with it he sort of invokes them and their spirit.

i pick up a definite sense of reason and an Irish sense of minding your own business -- dealing with earth because that is the source of life and its ultimate destination.

but i think myjunk is also onto something with the connection between livelihood and digging. trying to make something from what seems like nothing. in that sense, this almost reads like a justification or a reassurance to himself that his natural ability is worthwhile and directed.

[samsdmf]

[ QUOTE ]
i had also sort of thought of the writer's sense of the pen channeling his ancestors as the tools of his craft; with it he sort of invokes them and their spirit.


[/ QUOTE ]
This is a very interesting point very well put.

Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

Could this be a metaphor for Heaney digging up the memories of his grandfather, looking over his shoulder at the past
The final line "I'll dig with it" may not just refer to him being able to earn a living through writing, but his ability to use Writing as a tool to 'dig up' and preserve the past through his pen.

[MyJunkIsYou]

[ QUOTE ]

The final line "I'll dig with it" may not just refer to him being able to earn a living through writing, but his ability to use Writing as a tool to 'dig up' and preserve the past through his pen.

[/ QUOTE ]

great point!

[John Cole]

First, I've had the pleasure of seeing Heaney read this poem in person, and he began his poetry reading with "Digging." In addition, the poem is also the first in his first volume of poetry, and as such, serves as an announcement. Also, I think it's helpful to keep in mind that the "digging" refered to in the poem is both for potatoes and turf; in fact, this "digging" is the natural movement for the Irish, a going down into the earth, as opposed to say in America where the movement was towards the West, the frontier.

You might also look a bit more a how Heaney calls the pen "squat." Ever see a "squat" pen?

[Zeno]

I enjoyed this poem.

A gun, a pen, a shovel - all tools - all active objects, not passive.

The earth/family connection and continuity is something that many people can empathize with I would think – a common ground for many – so a foundation is easily built between poet and reader and the poem has bookends that help the poem have a clean and sharp feel in beginning and ending. Like cutting out a slab of peat say.

-Zeno

[thecincykiddo]

John raises an interesting point and more or less confirms my suspiscions of "writer's resolution"

It could be argued that Western Expansion, the under-handed partner of the Industrial Revolution, was as much a move away from earthy solidarity as a break with potato farming was for Heaney (or Heaney-as-narrator.)

The "squat" pen is idle methinks. Less active, perhaps? But I'd be interested in you (or anyone) looking a bit more at it...