Footnotes

1. The speaker's tone displays his pride in the hard work of his father and grandfather. The upbeat flow of the poem leads the reader to believe that the speaker is completely content with his situation and the accomplishments of his predecessors. However, it becomes apparent that the speaker resents the fact that he does not continue their tradition of hard field. The speaker realizes that instead of working with a spade he will leave his mark with a pen as he states, "Between my finger and thumb the squat pen rests. I'll dig with it." ▲
2. The structure of this poem is interesting in that it almost parallels the flow of the poem’s subject. As the speaker reveals his underlying appreciation for his father and grandfather’s hard work (line 5, 16), the stanzas become larger in a crescendo like manner; it could also add effect to the digging, where the larger stanzas represent a larger removal of earth. Conversely, line 17 begins the decrescendo of the stanzas to bring the poem full circle back to the speaker and his own feelings of inadequacy; "The squat pens rests / I’ll dig with it" (line 30-31). – Kyle Korelishn ▲
3. This line is very different than the majority of the poems we have read this year. This poem shows his love and respect of his father. He references his father directly, which we do not see very often. ▲
4. I really enjoyed this poem not for its descriptiveness or its impressive tone, but for Heaney's use of his "roots." Heaney is Irish, and in Ireland potatoes are abundant. Much of the agricultural life in Ireland pertains to potatoes. The theme of potatoes and the use of the word help to immerse his readers in his world, and he allows you to look deeper into his roots. The imagery that Heaney uses as well helps to create a world that I have never seen before. Hunter Berman ▲
5. Stanzas 2 and 3 feature abrupt tense shifts that relate the memories of the speaker in an effective way. The “clean rasping sound” is the first sensory queue to insinuate that this is happening in the present, since the structure of the line is in the present. The speaker recognizes the sound as “my father, digging,” and he “looks down.” The tense shifts quickly to present progressive, then past tense. The present progressive could be understood as the speaker actively remember his father's labor, as he is “stooping in time with the potato drills.” Finally, the differentiation between past and present is made when the speaker sees “where he was digging.” This entire exercise in tense shifting relates to the theme of the poem, which is one of recognizing the merits of one's ancestors, and does so in a way the venerates them in the memories of the present generation. James Garland ▲
6. The second sentence of the poem, “the squat pen rests; as snug as a gun,” is very intriguing as the author is comparing his pen and furthermore the product of the pen, his poetry, to a truly effective weapon. This sets the tone for the high regard in which Heaney holds the art of poetry. Heaney transitions to describing his father and grandfather’s skill with a spade, and furthermore at farming, with the lines, “By God, the old man could handle a spade,/ Just like his old man.” He also states his grandfather could cut more turf in one day than many other men. These lines show that both men in his family were extroadinary farmers and had amazing work ethic. This is important because at the end of the poem Heaney declares his spade will be his pen, indicating that he will devote the same work ethic to writing to poetry, and that he is and will continue to be a very prolific poet. So while this piece is paying homage to his father and grandfather and their trade, it is also in a sense paying homage to the art of poetry, in saying he can be extremely successful with this mode of art and will dedicate himself to it. -Marcus Patterson ▲
7. In this poem the audience learns of the roots of the speaker's father and his father before him. These men have all been great manual laborers, able to dig and work like no one else he knew. Much of this poem has to do with Heaney's background as an Irishman with the potatoes cluing us in to a very important part of his history. This stanza tells how the roots of the "soggy peat" where the potatoes are grown are like the roots of his family. They are based on this hard labor and the working for food and livelihood. His family’s past is rooted in the work with potatoes, in "the squelch and slap." Even though the speaker knows that his roots lay in these things he is breaking from what his fathers have done before him. The speaker has "no spade to follow men like them." He is different and wants to do something else with his life than cut through the soggy peat and dig for potatoes. He is breaking away from his family’s roots and cutting through them just as the shovel cuts through the living roots of the potato. He will not be working with a spade, but rather a pen. –Zack Roward ▲
8. We have mentioned in class that Heaney writes about his heritage and this poem seems to be written with Heaney as the speaker. The speaker addresses and praise the traditions carried on by the father and grandfather. The speaker decides to continue the tradition in his own way. Instead of digging up potatoes with a spade, he will be digging up things from the family's past with a pen. In the last line of the second to last stanza he seems discouraged that he is not the same sort of man as his predecessors. The last stanza counters this. His pen fits his hand the way his father's boots fit the spade. His pen was also originally compared to a gun which has both powerful and dangerous connotations. - Jasmine Jenkins ▲
9. The idea of "digging" in this poem seems to tie together three generations. The speaker's father and grandfather had worked digging in the soil, and now the speaker too will engage in a form of "digging." While the speaker wishes to continue living by the moral principles his father and grandfather had, he cannot continue working as they did, however. Rather than literally digging in the soil, then, the speaker chooses to leave his legacy with a pen. The speaker appears to have a deep sense of responsibility to the legacy of his father and grandfather, and remains true to this legacy through his writing. The repetition of "Between my finger and my thumb/The squat pen rests" reminds the speaker that he must uphold the values of the generations before him. Diana Fridlyand ▲
10. The narrative in this poem is used in order to create tone and mood for the poem. The idea that the grandfather of the speaker "could cut more turn in a day / than any other man on Toner's bog" shows that the speaker looked up to his grandfather, and that this poem is a kind of tribute to him. Also, the repetition of the word dig allows the reader to assume different things. The beginning of the poem has a simple simile in which the pen resting in his hand is compared to a gun. This is an odd image considering the next image is of his father digging and the word "gravelly" is used. The reader could assume that the father is digging a gave. Yet later the realization that the father is digging for potatoes. A historical connection could be made here, in which the father is almost digging a grave considering the famine in Ireland. Therefore, this poem could be a biological or historical narrative. Alyssa Perez ▲