Digging Commentary
The poem “Digging” by Seamus Heaney has the author reflecting about his father and grand-father’s careers and the effect it had on him, throughout his life. While the poem progresses, Heaney goes further back into his memories to remember the manual labor his ancestors did by digging. Seamus Heaney continues the family trade by using his writing to “dig” like his father and grand-father before him.
In the first two stanzas of the poem, Seamus Heaney pauses while he we writes, to observe his father digging. Heaney “rests” the “pen” and notices “under” his “window” his “father, digging”. This sets up the entire memory sequence that is followed throughout the poem. The first two stanzas are also the only stanzas with a rhyme scheme, which is AA AAA. Heaney does this in order to exercise his talent in writing, justifying the trade he has broken. Also we learn of Heaney’s tool, a “squat pen”, which will come into comparison with the tools his father and grand-father used for work. The power Heaney gets from his tool also is brought up in the first stanza, when he compares it to “a gun”. The digging his ancestors is a constant reminder for Heaney, as he pauses to “look down” to his “father, digging”.
