Digging - Poetry Blog 1

I really enjoyed the poem Digging by Seamus Heaney. In it, Seamus shows how he respects both his father and grandfather for all the hard work they did, and yet at the same time he is saying that he has no interest in following in their footsteps. "But I've no spade to follow men like them." (Line 28) In the way that the spade was his father and grandfather's tools of trade, so the author chose his pen to be his tool of the trade, "I'll dig with it." (line 31). I particularly liked the first line I quoted: "But I've no spade to follow men like them." (Line 28) I think he cleverly used the word "spade" in place of the word "interest" or "desire." By using the word "spade" to make his point in this line, he tied in his whole poem and the "Irish" theme running through it (potatoes, ect...). Even though he did not want to follow his father or grandfather, I think he still showed his respect for them, "By God, the old man could handle a spade, just like his old man." (lines 15, 16). This poem reminded me of my own situation, where none of my parents or grandparents have went to college, and here I am going to college to be a nurse and get a degree. I think of it as kind of stepping out from the line of simply "digging" to "digging with a pen."

(I used the link to http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/digging/ to read the poem, so all of my line citations are cited from the poem located on this website).