Sunlight and Digging are two poems that were written by Seamus Heaney, an Irish born poet. Through those poems he talks about some of his memories of the past that he spent with his family members. They both describe how hard working they were and the physical strength they needed.
Digging is one of the famous poems of Heaney. In the twentieth century, the labours of everyday life were quite different as the ones of today. Most people were still living a rural life, and weren’t yet completely introduced to urbanization. In this poem we are left with his thoughts and feelings. Each stanza of this poem takes you further and further back in time, and with it progresses a good use of imagery. Therefore we can note that “Digging” is based on one of Heaney’s childhood memories. He talks with the outmost respect about the hard working attitude, and physical strength of his family members as they are digging in their fields. He loves and admires his grandfather and father, and by doing simple little tasks such as bringing his grandfather some milk in a bottle shows how much respect he has for his family. Heaney’s family is from Northern Ireland, which is well known for their potatoes. When we read the two first lines of the second stanza, one after the other, they sound quite similar although the words are different. It’s because they are similar in length, have similar rhythms, plus they rime at the end “sound” “ground”. We are settling in this pattern when Heaney directly takes us out of it with the next line. This line and the one that follows, by using “digging”, he introduces us to the job of his father: a potato farmer. We can than assume that the speaker is Heaney as his a writer and son of a farmer. We quickly find out that he’s also the grandson of a harvester, which means he comes from a line of diggers. He’s full of praise for them, and his being little hard on himself by saying he has “no spade to follow men like them”, because he doesn’t quite think that his work as a writer is as important as theirs. He wants to be like them so much that he strives to find a connection between his writing and their manual labour. That’s why he says “I’ll dig with it” as in he will dig into his past with his pen.
The Essay on Blackberry Picking By Seamus Heaney Poem Review
In the poem "Blackberry-Picking" by Seamus Heaney, the author uses powerful metaphors, strong diction, descriptive imagery, and an organized form to compare picking blackberries to holding on to your childhood. Metaphors are the strongest tool the author uses to convey his deeper understanding of the experience of picking blackberries. The blackberries in themselves are a metaphor for childhood. ...
The heavy use of assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia throughout the poem creates a strong sound image that represents the act of this digging, digging into the richness of language. The onomatopoeia is obvious in “rasping”, “gravelly”, “sloppily”, “squelch” and “slap”. We can then say, that “digging” was part of this family for three generations, as a male occupation. There is an extended metaphor of “digging” and “roots”, which shows how the poet in his writing is getting back to his own roots, meaning his identity. The whole poem is triggered by a few senses, these being the sound and smell of a spade slicing through the earth. Using the five senses, it creates a vivid picture of the potato fields. “The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge.” (Lines 25-26), it to me conjures up a beautiful picture, using the senses of sight and smell. “The curt cut of an edge” makes you believe that the cut of peat is professional and neat. He’s grandfather have probably been doing this job for many years, and the fact that his grandson sees him doing the same work after all those years with professionalism and neatness is surprising. “Through living roots awaken in my head” (line 27), just as easily as a sense triggered his flashback he gets back in the past. The poem finishes with: “Between my thumb and finger the squat pen rests” this line opens and closes the poem with the last line “I’ll dig with it” being a metaphor. While the juxtaposition of the pen and a gun recalls the old adage: “the pen is mightier than the sword”, the final comparison is more powerful, describing Heaney’s work as precise and creative rather than violent and simply powerful.
The Essay on Digging A Poem By Seamus Heaney
In this poem 'Digging' by Seamus Heaney, there is an element of ambiguity. The author writes this poem about a Father 'digging potatoes' - this however, is only on the surface. Underlying the true intention or meaning of the poem reveals the great admiration and respect for how hardworking his Father and Grandfather was. All though this may just be a poem about 'digging potatoes'. The poet reveals ...
“Sunlight” which is another poem of Seamus Heaney, was written for his aunt Mary Heaney. As he describes what is happening in the kitchen’s surroundings while his aunt is baking, we can assume that here he’s the speaker again. This poem recalls as “Digging” a memory of the past. At that time women had as an everyday job: take care of the house and the family. Which means she did the dust, grocery shopping and she cooked. Men were the ones bringing money home. “There was a sunlit absence”, is the first line, it introduces the motif and emotions. Sunlight is known for its warmth (= comfort).
Here, “absence” has several meanings: absence of company, absence of comfort, and absence of love. She had no one to talk to as the walls of the kitchen has confined her, which is ironic since it’s her gender role and every day job that are confining her. The initial scene is narrated in the past, following the eye of the poet as it moves from farmyard into the kitchen. The word “So” permits the pause that allows the eye to refocus on Mary, busy baking. As she baked “ her hands scuffled”, which means they were in a constant rapid movement. Her “floury apron” and “whitened nails” reveals her main cooking ingredient, which is flour. “dusts the board with a goose’s wing”, proves that Heaney is brining us back to when women had to work long hours in the house cooking for their family, because a “goose-wing” is an old-fashioned, traditional way of dusting a board. Another fact that demonstrate, the hard work of his aunt is when he employs “measling shins”, as it describes the flaws and blemishes visible on her aging skin. This scene is much more than just an image of a woman at work, the space she’s confined to is accompanied by a deeply emotional one. The last stanza tells us the sounds of that “scoop” in our ears, “sunk” as in love is sunk into the work of life. The way Mary was moving while she was baking, can make us think about our hands full of struggle, pieces and fragments, as we try to make our lives.
The Term Paper on Ruth Stone Women Poetry Poem
Mary Ann Wehler Ruth Stone was forty-four when she published her first book, In an Iridescent Time, in 1959. In fact, Norman Friedman states in his essay, "The Poetry of Ruth Stone" (46) that Stone had mastered the elegant formal conventions of that era. Soon after, Harvey Gross deems in his article, "On the Poetry of Ruth Stone," that Stone was versed in "balanced pentameters, ballad stanzas, ...
For Heaney “Sunlight” is as important/meaningful as “Digging”, because they both refer to his family members that worked hard, and non stop to provide him a more pleasant life. In “Digging”, Seamus Heaney expresses his love of his native grounds, with his fascination with the work and all kinds of tools that his grandfather and father uses, because he now need only one tool, he’s powerful pen, to do his digging. It seems that he has a vision of poetry as a laborious, traditional, and sustaining craft like farming. However, we shouldn’t forget to mention that this poem takes the shape of a promise or more like a commitment from Heaney to his grandfather and father. He keeps his “promise” by putting long and unrestful hours of work into another kind of work, but which could be another type of digging: poetry. “Sunlight” illustrates the pitiful working conditions of a woman that is so familiar to us, as it’s a big history moment when the women decided to lose this image of working home. Heaney records the event very objectively, and like a passive observer as he uses a simple language and it’s silent about what he wants to say (doesn’t mention any possible opinion he has on what he saw).
He presents some images that arouse the emotion and sympathy in the reader.
To conclude, the poems “Digging” and “Sunlight” talk about labour of everyday and the gender roles of men and women are very specific. As well as the traditions that Heaney defines through his past. By reading these poems, we can see that he cherishes his traditions and his love towards family.
A. M. A. A.
