Digging: What of my Father and his Father?

The poem “Digging” by Seamus Heaney is a beautiful piece that grapples with societal and self expectations.

I admire this poem because it feels like Heaney is navigating what it feels like to be different from all of the men of your family that came before you. In his lines he seems to admire the hard work of his father who “by God, could handle a spade.” 

He then moves to tell an admirable story about bringing milk to his grandfather who “cut more turf in a day than any other man on Toner’s bog.” In this moment Heaney purposefully uses “sloppily” to describe his own work but then says “neatly” about his grandfather’s work. This is a choice that illustrates the narrator’s internal thoughts of how he is lesser than his grandfather.

Heaney comes back to his pen at the end and makes the argument that, though he is a writer, he will still be digging as he works. I think this poem is a beautiful example of coming to grips with oneself and finally, after some time, realizing that you are worth just as much as anyone else even though you’re different. 

I think the structure of this piece contributes well to this message, too. We begin with the pen and writing and then we have the history of the father and grandfather interjected into the piece, and then we come back and finish with the pen. This is just a beautiful way to compound the message of self discovery and self understanding. We forget what we start with and then are reminded of it again at the end.

Heaney is a structural genius and intertwines storytelling with the art of poetry incredibly well and this poem is a great example of those skills.