Reading for meaning
At the start of the poem the writer is sitting in his room next to a window looking down at his father digging. The writer is holding a pen.
The sight of his father digging reminds him of his father working in the potato fields when he was younger.
The writer also associates his Grandfather with digging aswell. He has a memory of taking his Grandfather milk in a bottle when he was very young and him drinking it but then getting back to work straight away.
However the writer decides to write instead of digging.
Finish these statements
The poem is about how the writer has chosen to become a writer instead of following in his Father's and Grandfather's footsteps and becoming a digger in a field. He compares how they are very different in trade but how they are similar but two dig with shovels while one with a pen.
The words and phrases that struck me most was the way onomatopoeia was used in the words to make you feel like you were there such as 'nicking and slicing' which is the sound of the shovel hitting the ground. Also the words 'squelch and slap' which shows the sound of the mud making you feel like you're there and also that nature is alive.
Heaney is different from his father because his father worked on the land all of his life doing hard labour everyday but Heaney has never worked hard labour and has wrote poetry for a living.
