The Natural world plays quite a big part in Heaney’s poetry because of his childhood memories of growing up on a farm.
Digging, is about his father and grandfather using the natural surroundings of the farm to live, this including digging for potatoes and burning turf on the fire for warmth. Heaney gives vivid descriptions of the natural world and the feelings it gives him. “To scatter new potatoes that we picked loving their cool hardness in our hands.” Heaney describes the feelings he got when he scattered the potatoes and that he loved their feeling because they were very important in his day. “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.” Heaney tells us of his memories of working when he was younger and the feelings they gave him. By referring to the memories as roots it shows his minds preoccupation with the natural world and how it affects his writing.
Follower also tells us of working on the farm and its natural surroundings. The poem is predominantly about how his father uses the natural surroundings and natural materials to work the farm; this can be seen at several points in the poem. “My father worked with a horse-plough” Heaney tells us that his father used a horse plough to plough the land, here he chooses the natural way of ploughing over the mechanical and shows us the strength of the natural world. “The horses strained at his clicking tongue” and “At the headrig, with a single pluck of reins, the sweating team turned round and back into the land” here we see Heaney’s, father’s relationship with the land and how he is at one with the natural world especially with his horses. We see this when he only has to click his tongue to command his horses and only requires one tug of the reigns to turn the horses round.
Mid-term break does not tell us much about the natural world because of the situation but you could grasp one thing from it and that is that as soon as there is the introduction of something modern and unnatural; the car, something bad happens.
Growing up is a very important part of Heaney’s writing and is contained in many of his poems, but in some it is very predominant and others not as much.
Digging is more around Heaney’s growth of his poetry than his own but he does write about some elements of growing up and his family’s heritage. Towards the end of the poem Heaney faces the fact that he can no longer do what his father and grandfather did before him because times have changed and he realises he must as well. “But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.” Here Heaney writes that he can no longer follow in his father’s footsteps because he does not have the skills or the knowledge to carry on like his father. The final line of the poem tells us of how he will use his poetry and how his family have affected the way he writes his poetry. “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests, I’ll dig with it” Heaney sums up the poem and decides to carry on with his family’s tradition of digging but instead of digging for potatoes and turf he will dig inside himself using his poetry.
In Follower in the first five stanzas Heaney has told us of how great his father was and even makes him sound like a god but in the final stanza Heaney tells us how things have changed and that it is now his father who is looking for recognition from him and trying to help but inevitably getting in the way. This is similar to the ending of Digging where there is a turning point and Heaney tells us of how things have changed whether it is his family’s role in the workplace or his father’s role towards him as an idol.
In Mid-term break Heaney has to deal with the death of his younger brother, dealing with death itself is a part of growing up but for Heaney it is different, he is the eldest and has responsibilities to act as a pillar towards the whole family and help them get over the difficult time. “Old men standing up to shake my hand” and “whispers informed strangers that I was the eldest.” At this point he realises his responsibilities of being the eldest and that he must now grow up. “My mother held my hand in hers”; here the young Heaney acts as a pillar of strength for his mother, another aspect of growing up.
In every poem in the anthology there is a turning point, a moment of realisation at the end of each poem where Heaney decides the way he will go or how he will deal with a new aspect of life.
In Digging it can be seen very distinctly, he finishes the poem with almost the same line he started it with, this way we can see the problem clearly as well as the answer to it. “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rest; snug as a gun” Heaney starts off with the problem that he does not know how he will use his poetry, he must be careful with it because it is a powerful thing that is why he refers to his pen as a gun. “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rest, I’ll dig with it”, in the final stanza of the poem Heaney decides to carry on with his family’s heritage but in a different way, instead of digging for turf and potatoes he will dig inside himself and into his poetry to find out more about himself and his family.
In Follower it is less distinct but not hard to see. For the first five stanzas Heaney tells us how great his father and how he looks in awe of him and then in his final stanza he tells us that it is his father who now looks up to him and follows him around being a nuisance. “All I ever did was follow in his broad shadow around the farm.” Here we see Heaney telling us how he would look up to his father and be seen in his shadow. “But today it is my father who keeps stumbling behind me, and will not go away.” Then in the final stages of the poem Heaney tells us it is now his father who follows him and is becoming a nuisance.
In Mid-Term break there is a moment of realisation for both Heaney and the reader. “Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, he lay in his four foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.” When the young Heaney sees the body of his brother he is shocked because there is no major visible marks to pronounce him dead all there is, as Heaney says, is a “Poppy bruise on his left temple”, Heaney even says, “The bumper knocked him clear” as if the bumper knocked him out of harms way. The reader also has a moment of realisation at the very end of the poem, “A four foot box, a foot for every year”. Up until now we did not know the age of his brother, or that he was so young. Heaney has doe this to shock the reader and by using and onomatopoeia, “four foot box”, he has given the line more of an impact.
Heaney has a very specific poetic style, using imagery, form, poetic devises, tone and form in different ways to help his writing produce more of an impact on the reader.
Heaney uses vivid imagery throughout his poetry, to help the reader feel what Heaney felt and be the places Heaney has been. “To scatter new potatoes that we picked loving their cool hardness in our hands”, in Digging Heaney describes the feeling of the potatoes in his hands as he scattered them to grow. “Fell sometimes on the polished sod” and “the sweating team turned round and back into the land.” In Follower he describes the farm and the way the sod looked on the land as well as the feeling of stress the horses are under as they pull the plough around the field. The richness of Heaney’s language evokes his own senses and causes him to remember the past and his feelings at that time.
Heaney uses many poetic devices throughout his writing to good affect and it helps the reader to imagine the feelings and actions of Heaney that are going on in his mind. The words Heaney uses enrich the poetry, he uses much onomatopoeia to create atmosphere in his writing. “The squelch and slap of soggy peat” and “I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, yapping always”, these are all words that sound like the action they are trying to describe, he uses these sorts of words so that the reader can imagine the scene better. Heaney also uses alliteration in his poetry, this is where two words are placed one after the other that both start with the same sound. “A four foot box a foot for every year” and “like a full sail strung”, these are both examples of alliteration but both have a different effect, the first gives impact to the words to shock you and the second gives the words a “tort” feeling like the sail is actually being pulled tight. Heaney also uses many similes to get his points across and to give the reader a good mental picture of the surroundings. “His shoulders globed like a full sail strung”, here Heaney describes his father to be as big as a sail with huge globed shoulders, and this helps the reader to get a good picture of what is father was like. Heaney also uses some metaphors too in his poetry; this is where one action can mean or act like something else in Heaney’s mind. “The squat pen rests, I will dig with it”, this is a metaphor for Heaney looking inside himself (digging) using his poetry (the pen).
Heaney has a similar structure to all of his poems, they all follow a similar cyclical pattern starting with a problem or idea then ending with a resolve of that problem or a moment of realisation. The best example is from Digging where he starts with a problem then resolves it at the end. “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests; snug as a gun” then “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests, I will dig with it” he starts off not knowing how he will use his writing then by the end he has a clear idea of how he will use it. “I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, yapping always. But today it is my father who jeeps stumbling behind me, and will not go away”, In Follower Heaney builds up the idea of his father being a very powerful strong man that he looks up to and Heaney then tells us that it is his father who now follows him. Heaney’s last line or stanza tries to create an impact on the reader by shocking them so that it makes an impression on the reader; an example of this is in Mid-Term Break. “A four foot box a foot for every year” this is the point where we find out how young Heaney’s brother was when he died, he uses appropriate poetic devises to give the line impact on the reader so it is not forgotten.
The impression we get from Heaney’s poetry is that he has a very friendly personality and that he is very informal with people, we can tell this from the language he uses. “By god, the old man could handle a spade”, here Heaney uses colloquial language that makes the writing more personal and is more welcoming to the reader it is like Heaney is having a conversation with the reader.
Heaney has a very unique way of setting out the stanza, he makes brakes in the middle of sentences to emphasise points and put across the informal atmosphere that he also does by using language. Heaney likes to break up stanza in unexpected places to give freedom to his writing and show that he is not conforming to a certain form of writing poetry. He also does this to put forward the informal conversational tone, for example in Mid-Term break he breaks the stanza up so it looks like a conversation and that he is telling us about the event of his brother’s death. He also does it to emphasise points;
“…My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years later…”
Here Heaney stops the stanza in the middle of a sentence to put emphasise on “I look down” so that as he looks down so does the reader, this helps to involve the reader in the poem and helps with the more personal informal tone of the poem.
In conclusion, Heaney’s main preoccupations are; his relationship with his family, particularly his father, growing up and becoming a responsible man who chooses the right things over what he would rather to do, the countryside and the childhood he spent there with his family, and turning point are very important in his poetry because that is how he has decided to use his poetry; to find out more about himself and make decisions about his life. Heaney explores these preoccupations with the richness of his language. He uses words that help the reader to put themselves in Heaney’s experiences and to feel what Heaney feels. The senses are very important in Heaney’s writing and by using the language the way he does he evokes the senses and puts them into action just by using language. Heaney explores his preoccupations by manipulating the language to the point where the reader feels he or she is Heaney and has felt the things Heaney has felt.
