Digging: Potato and Father
Digging Summary
The poem begins with our speaker at his desk, his pen poised to begin writing. He gets distracted by the sound of his father outside, working in the garden, and this sends our speaker into a spiral of memories about his father working in the potato fields when the speaker was a young boy. The memory stretches even further back to his grandfather and the hard work he did as a peat harvester (there's all kinds of hard work going on). Eventually, our speaker snaps out of his daydream, and we find him back at his desk, ready to get to work on his writing.
Stanza 1 Summary
Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 1-2
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
• This poem begins with the camera completely zoomed in. Heaney gives us an image of a hand (specifically the fingers) holding a pen. But the focus is all on the pen. The hand doesn't hold the pen, the pen rests in the hand. Who's the subject now, hand? • Then the speaker throws a startling simile at us. In his hand, the pen feels like a gun. • While it doesn't quite look the same, both holding a pen and a gun require your finger (on the trigger if you're holding a gun) and your thumb, of course. • Oh, and both pens and guns are tools, albeit for totally different jobs. • What's so weird about this is that we typically think of writing as something peaceful and contemplative, which is what the word "snug" makes us think of – snuggled up, tight, secure. • Yet our speaker jolts us awake by saying that writing is like holding a gun, which conjures up images of violence and unrest. Why do you think Heaney would compare these two totally different objects in such a way? • Notice anything interesting about the sound of these lines?
The poem begins with our speaker at his desk, his pen poised to begin writing. He gets distracted by the sound of his father outside, working in the garden, and this sends our speaker into a spiral of memories about his father working in the potato fields when the speaker was a young boy. The memory stretches even further back to his grandfather and the hard work he did as a peat harvester (there's all kinds of hard work going on). Eventually, our speaker snaps out of his daydream, and we find him back at his desk, ready to get to work on his writing.
Stanza 1 Summary
Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 1-2
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
• This poem begins with the camera completely zoomed in. Heaney gives us an image of a hand (specifically the fingers) holding a pen. But the focus is all on the pen. The hand doesn't hold the pen, the pen rests in the hand. Who's the subject now, hand? • Then the speaker throws a startling simile at us. In his hand, the pen feels like a gun. • While it doesn't quite look the same, both holding a pen and a gun require your finger (on the trigger if you're holding a gun) and your thumb, of course. • Oh, and both pens and guns are tools, albeit for totally different jobs. • What's so weird about this is that we typically think of writing as something peaceful and contemplative, which is what the word "snug" makes us think of – snuggled up, tight, secure. • Yet our speaker jolts us awake by saying that writing is like holding a gun, which conjures up images of violence and unrest. Why do you think Heaney would compare these two totally different objects in such a way? • Notice anything interesting about the sound of these lines?