Semester –III Poetry DIGGING -Seamus Heaney Presented by N. Victor David Dinakaran Senior Lecturer, Dept of English

Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA was an Irish poet, playwright and translator Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist, his first major published volume. Heaney was born in the townland of Tamniaran between Castledawson and Toomebridge, Northern Ireland.  Born: 13 April 1939, Castledawson Died: 30 August 2013, Blackrock Clinic, Dublin, Republic of Ireland Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature, T. S. Eliot Prize, 

Context: Our teachers are our parents and those around us. Recollect what you learnt in your childhood from them. Did they teach you by being an example as well ? How did this influence you? Did you simply learn what they taught you? Did you choose goals that were different from theirs? Why? Discuss your experiences with your friends and ask them for theirs.

DIGGING 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    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 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, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, 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.

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. This poem begins with the camera completely zoomed in. Heaney gives us an image of a hand (specifically the fingers) holding a pen. But the focus is all on the pen. The hand doesn't hold the pen, the pen rests in the hand. Who's the subject now, hand? Then the speaker throws a startling simile at us. In his hand, the pen feels like a gun. While it doesn't quite look the same, both holding a pen and a gun require your finger and your thumb, of course.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: Someone outside is digging, using a spade, or shovel, and it's making a rasping sound when it cuts into the earth. Why rasping? Well, the shovel probably makes a horrible, grating sound when it enters the ground because the shovel is skimming against lots of tiny stones that make up the "gravelly ground." "Clean" and "rasping" is another interesting pairing of words. "Rasping" and "gravelly" work well together because they're similar in meaning – rasping means coarse and gravel actually is coarse.

My father digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Oh, so it's the speaker's father who is doing the digging. Okay, good to know. So far, there have been three different tools mentioned: the pen, the gun, and the spade. When we step back, we see the speaker (the son) indoors, pen in hand, and outside, the father works digging at the rocky soil. Those are two very different activities.

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging. So what was happening twenty years ago in our speaker's mind? His father was digging potatoes, that's what. Potato drills, by the way, are evenly spaced rows of potatoes in a field. Nothing too confusing there. But it also refers to the act of drilling into the earth to make a hole in which you plant the potato. It seems the rhythm of the father bending and rising in his garden has sparked this flashback – it's the same pattern he used to follow in the potato drills, dipping down into the ground, then coming back up.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep 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 Just when you thought you were done, it's still tool time, friends. The coarse boot belongs to the father, and it's probably coarse because it's a beat-up old work boot. A lug refers to the top of the blade of the spade, which sticks out on either side of the shaft, or handle.

To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands. Up until this point, our speaker was talking about his father as if he were alone, but "we" pops up in Line 14. Looks like the father and son are doing this work together. Or at the very least the son is hanging around while the father works. The "cool hardness" refers to the way the potato feels when it's pulled from the earth, almost like a rock. Note, too, that again the speaker is talking about the way something feels in his hand, only this time instead of a pen, it's a potato.

By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. Okay, there are two things to notice here, but before we talk about them, let's get a grip on what these lines are actually saying. It seems our speaker's father was really good at digging up these potatoes, and apparently his grandfather wasn't too shabby in the fields either. First, we've got another comment about tools and trade. The speaker seems to think the ability to work with one's hands is a good thing; he's paying his father and grandfather a compliment.

My grandfather 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 Our speaker is reaching even further back into the family history to the time when his grandfather dug for turf, and evidently, was very good at it. Is there anything these men can't do? A bog is a patch of wet, muddy ground, covered in peat, or turf, which forms the grassy top layer. Our speaker enters the scene with his grandfather now, and he's probably quite young in this memory.

To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. Got milk? The grandfather certainly does. But he only allows himself a quick break before getting right back to business. Heaney describes how he cuts into the ground with his spade – "nicking and slicing neatly." It seems as though it's not just hard labor, but takes a good amount of technique, too.

Through living roots awaken in my head The cold smell of potato mould, 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. These lines are the first half of a sentence that will be completed in line 27, so for now, let's just think of them as a list. But of what? Of the smells and sounds of digging for potatoes and peat – that's what. He brings up the smell of potato mold, the sounds of the peat bog, and the cuts of the spade as it digs down into the earth.

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests I’ll dig with it Wow, what an ending. First, like a boomerang, the speaker circles all the way back to where he started and repeats the first two lines of the poem. In doing so, he manages to show he is following in the tradition of his father and grandfather. He's just using a different tool and a different method.

GLOSSARY Squat : short and thickset in body Snug : very tight Rasping : unpleasant sound Gravelly : rough sand and very small loose stones Rump: The back side ; the buttocks Heaving: to lift up a heavy object over your shoulder Curt: rude; direct without any formalities