(Lines 7-9 catrin)
The umbilical cord holding the two together.
Little Boy Lost Little Boy Found, this poem has love within the family and the desperation of a father to find his son again, eventually he does and he is metaphorically spoken of as god.
“But god ever nigh appeared like his father in white.” (Lines 3-4 Little boy found)
On my first son is about a child growing up and ‘leaving the nest’ for the father is upset that his little boy has grown up and he can no long be with him all the time. This is made clear by line eight.
“And if no other misery, yet age!” (Line 8 On my first son)
This comments on the only misery being age and explains the whole poem.
I have chosen Digging and Catrin because I feel I understand both the poems much better.
Digging is a poem about childhood. The whole poem is triggered by a few senses, these being the sound and smell of a spade slicing through the earth. It is as if the poet Seamus Heaney is sat at his window and is stuck on what to write. There is a physical tie of respect in his family. He loves and admires his grandfather and father and remembers little things such as carrying out tasks as simple as carrying him milk in a bottle, this alone shows how much respect that he shows for his family.
“Once I carried him milk in a bottle sloppily corked with paper. He straightened up too drink it, then fell to right away.” (Lines 18-19 Digging)
Each stanza of Digging takes you further and further back in time, and with it progresses a good use of imagery
“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge.” (Lines 25-26 Digging)
This to me conjures up a wonderful picture, using the senses of sight and smell. “The curt cut of an edge” this makes you believe that the cut of peat is professional and neat.
“Through living roots awaken in my head” (line 27 Digging)
Just as easily as a sense triggered his flashback he gets bought back, probably because the digging outside has stopped. The poem finishes with
“Between my thumb and finger the squat pen rests” this line opens and closes the poem with the last line being a metaphor.
“I’ll dig with it.”
Catrin describes the emotional love between a daughter and her mother thus provoking another field of love different from the one that digging shows.
“I can remember you, child,” (line 1 Catrin)
‘Child’ this implies a stern and direct way because you only call your own children ‘Child’ when you are angry with them.
“Our first fierce confrontation, the tight red rope of love which we both fought over.”
(Lines 4-9 catrin)
This, before you are partly introduced to the poem, already implies a fight, it appears like it is over the umbilical cord and they are playing tug-o-war with each other. She describes the blank disinfected environment that was the delivery room and she imagines decorations on the walls, probably to take her mind off what was going on. The baby is born but the umbilical cord still stands and still they are still fighting, they want to be two to be themselves. The battle is apparently never lost as the poem then goes on to describe the fight continuing. Also there is an element of jealousy as it leaps out at you when catrin describes her daughter.
“As you stand there with your straight, strong, long brown hair and your rosy defiant glare,” (lines 21-24 Catrin)
“From the hearts pool that old rope, tightening about my life.” This continues to describe the conflict with her child around emotional love despite the fact that they are not physically joined anymore it would appear that they are emotionally, and that they can never escape that fact that faces them. At the end of the poem the entire thing is made clear, why this has come up.
“As you ask may you skate in the dark, for one more hour.”
Both poems evoke an entirely different response; Digging evokes a mark of respect for older generations and is love for them. Catrin is different and responds to the emotional ties and links that complicate so many families.
I prefer digging because it uses a good use of imagery and I feel that I can relate and imagine what was going on, how and why it was happening. This used to be close to the way of life and I think that that was much better without the pollution and distractions of the modern day. I don’t like catrin as much because it reminds me of how the world is today and just how a lot of things shouldn’t be, but it shows a good representation of life. All four poems evoke love but all in different ways this is a good representation because everyone is different person.