Digging with a Different

Tool
By Hannah Blackwood
            “Digging” is the first poem of Seamus Heaney’s debut collection of
poetry, Death of a Naturalist. It was a breakthrough for him. In his own essay
“Feeling into Words,” which was originally given as a lecture at the Royal
Society of Literature in 1974, he said, “I wrote it in the summer of 1964, almost
two years after I had begun to ‘dabble in verses.’ This was the first place where I
felt I had done more than make an arrangement of words: I felt that I had let
down a shaft into real life” (Heaney 15). “Real life” is evident through Heaney’s
relationship with his father and grandfather and the major themes that “Digging”
addresses such as tradition and customs, memory and reminiscence, and search
for self. In “Digging,” Heaney* struggles between honoring and departing from
his history and justifies his identity as a poet.

            Heaney’s memories of the past comprise much of the body of his poem
“Digging.” The poem begins in the present tense with Heaney writing and then
looking out the window at his father digging in the garden below. The poem then
changes into the past tense when Heaney begins recalling memories of his father
and grandfather. He begins with a memory of his father digging for potatoes
twenty years earlier and later recalls a similar memory of his grandfather cutting
turf. It is clear that Heaney has fond memories of this and even helped out as a
child by picking potatoes that his father dug up (lines 13-14) and bringing his
grandfather milk while he worked (line 19). It is also evident, especially in the
lines “By God, the old man could handle a spade./ Just like his old man” (lines
15-16), that he admired their skillful work. By including these memories and
reminiscing on the traditions of his family, Heaney indicates why it is so hard for
him to depart from his family history and choose a different path in life as a poet.

            In “Digging,” Heaney also attempts to justify his own identity as a poet.

From the very beginning, Heaney has to confront his “crisis of identity” (Collins
154). In order to begin to justify his identity, he draws upon the personal
memories discussed above. It is evident through Heaney’s memories and
descriptions that he is very removed from his father’s lifestyle and he concedes
that he has “no spade to follow men like them” (line 28). He acknowledges that
he is not going to be a digger of potatoes or turf like his father or grandfather
before him and seems even a little disappointed about it. Heaney wants “to
continue the work of his predecessors, but with a different though analogous
tool” (Duffy 44). He honors and admires their work, but has chosen to take a
different path.

            “Digging” is a declaration of the purpose and function of the poet (Buttel

36). In order to justify his identity, Heaney tries to understand this purpose and
function. Heaney described “poetry as revelation of the self to the self” in his
essay “Feeling into Words” (Heaney 15). He realizes that “as an artist, he will
still be digging” (Tamplin 3). Through his poetry, he can delve into the past and,
as the title of his essay suggests, put his feelings into words. Heaney comes to
understand that it is possible for him to both honor his history and depart from it.
He accepts that writing is not digging in the same way of his father and
grandfather, but in the end he seems content with his identity and is resolved to
continue “digging” with his pen.

            The entirety of “Digging” is founded on the metaphor of the pen as a

spade. As mentioned earlier, Heaney seemed to have a hard time breaking away
from the traditions of his forefathers and justifying his chosen vocation of
writing. This is apparent when he writes of the cutting of “live roots” (line 27).
But through using this pen/spade metaphor, Heaney suggests that he can continue
digging like his father and grandfather, but by using a different tool. “The poet…
will take up a metaphorical spade, conjuring continuity from apparent
discontinuity (physical labour versus cultural labour)” (Purdy). This founding
metaphor demonstrates Heaney’s realization that even though he has chosen to
depart from his history, he can still honor it as a poet through his writing. Despite
having “no spade to follow men like them” (line 28), he has a pen in hand and he
will “dig with it” (line 31).

            Another literary device appears in the very first two lines, “Between my
finger and my thumb/ The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.” This simile comparing
a pen to a gun serves a number of purposes. For instance, it indicates the power
that writing can have. It suggests that the speaker “feels poetry to be a forceful,
even a violent, activity” (“Overview: ‘Digging’” 1999). Another less apparent
concept that this simile could be referring to requires a small amount of
knowledge of the history of Ireland and characteristics of Northern Ireland
society. During the 20th century, Ireland, and Northern Ireland in particular, went
through a period of religious and political turmoil between the Catholics and the
Protestants and the Nationalists and the Unionists (Jackson). This conflict is
hinted at in this simile. In her biography of Heaney, Helen Vendler brings up that
“the disturbing thing about ‘Digging’ is that the Irish Catholic child grew up
between the offers of two instruments: the spade and the gun. ‘Choose,’ said two
opposing voices from his culture: ‘Inherit the farm,’ said agricultural tradition;
‘Take up arms,’ said Republican militarism” (Vendler 28-29). This choice is
echoed in Ronald Tamplin’s book on Heaney, “‘The squat pen rests; snug as a
gun’ – in the Irish context it must at least have overtones of the intimate
association between the gun and politics and the gun and literature. The
university student’s choice in the old revolutionary Ireland earlier in the century
was between the gun, the books and the bottle, so the image has sinister
possibilities hardly to be expected in an English poem (unless actually about
war). In an Irish one, it is disturbing but not out of place” (Tamplin 4).This simile
of the pen/gun supports this idea that Heaney has to choose between violence,
farming work, and writing, which goes back to his struggle to justify his identity.
While the first stanza, which contains this simile, is repeated nearly identically in
the last stanza, the gun isn’t mentioned the second time. The introduction of this
simile at the beginning of the poem and its removal at the end indicates that
Heaney has chosen to depart from the history of his country as well and use his
pen and writing as a tool, not a weapon.

            In addition to metaphor and simile, Heaney uses an exorbitant amount of

words that appeal to the senses. Interestingly, Heaney appeals to the sense of
touch before anything else. The first two lines of the poem, “Between my finger
and my thumb/ The squat pen rests; snug as a gun” cause the reader to imagine
what it feels like to hold a pen or gun. Since nearly everyone has held a pen and
knows what it feels like, this comparison allows the reader to have an idea of
what holding a gun may feel like, even if they’ve never held one. Another
example of tactile imagery is employed when Heaney describes the potatoes he
helped his father pick as a child and remembers how they “[loved] their cool
hardness in [their] hands” (line 14). Again, even if the reader hasn’t picked
potatoes, they have probably held a potato at one point in time and can imagine
the feel of a potato freshly dug from the cold earth. He also briefly appeals to the
sense of smell when he mentions “the cold smell of potato mould” (line 25)
which is most likely an unknown smell to the reader, but still provides the reader
with details about Heaney’s family tradition of picking potatoes. By using diction
that appeals to the senses of touch and smell in “Digging,” Heaney gives the
reader the power to understand what the two different vocations physically feel,
and even smell, like and consequently the power to understand the differences
between the poet’s history and the path he chose as a poet.

            Another sense that Heaney appeals to is sense of hearing. Again,

somewhat surprisingly, Heaney appeals to the sense of hearing before the sense
of sight. Heaney describes how he hears “a clean rasping sound” (line 3) even
before he actually looks out the window. He hears “the spade [sink] into gravelly
ground” (line 4). The alliteration of the s’s and g’s in this line presents very vivid
aural imagery which makes the reader feel like even they can hear the sound of
Heaney’s father digging in the garden. Through their sound, the hard g’s
represent the resistance that his father’s spade faces when it sinks into the
“gravelly ground.” Heaney uses a similar appeal to the sense of hearing when he
describes his grandfather cutting turf. The hard ck sound in “nicking” and the soft
c in “slicing” (line 22) present two contrasting sounds heard while his
grandfather cuts turf. Further on, Heaney uses the words “squelch” and “slap”
(line 25) to communicate the sound of the “soggy peat” (line 26). The reader may
have never seen or participated in any of these activities and thus have no idea
what they would sound like, but the diction Heaney chooses to use lets the reader
hear these sounds. Like the appeals to touch and smell, this appeal to the sense of
hearing helps the readers understand some of the details of Heaney’s history and
his father’s and grandfather’s jobs.

            The final sense that is appealed to in “Digging” is the sense of sight. In

the third stanza, Heaney describes what he sees looking out his window and
down into the garden where his father is working. The reader is then able to
picture his father’s “straining rump among the flowerbeds” (line 6) like they were
really there and saw him too. Then, in the second half of the third stanza and in
the fourth stanza, Heaney takes the reader back in time and recollects the picture
of his father digging for potatoes. This image of his father “stooping in rhythm
through potato drills” (line 8) with his “coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft/
Against the inside of the knee was levered firmly” (lines 10-11) provides the
reader with a depiction of Heaney’s father that emphasizes his skill in the work
he does. Yet again, in the penultimate stanza, Heaney writes of the “curt cuts”
(line 26) made by his grandfather when cutting turf. The alliteration of these two
hard c’s especially enhances the image and emphasize the skill and precision of
his grandfather’s work. Through this visual imagery, Heaney allows the reader to
feel like they’re present in Heaney’s memories and picture what’s happening
even if they don’t completely understand what’s going on. This causes the
readers to further understand his history and family traditions and therefore his
difficulty in leaving his history behind and choosing a different path and identity.

            History, identity, memory, tradition. Seamus Heaney incorporates all of

these themes in his poem “Digging.” This poem “commemorates [the] initial
encounter with ‘world become word’” (Collins 19). Using realistic aspects of life
and the world, Heaney is able to express his feelings through his poetry. He calls
upon memories from his childhood of his father and grandfather to illustrate the
traditional work of his family and explain why he is having a hard time justifying
his identity as a writer. These memories are presented in an incredibly lifelike
and imaginable manner primarily due to the use of descriptive language
throughout the poem that appeals to all of the senses.

            “Digging” informs the reader of the extent to which “the craft and skill
displayed by his father and grandfather have left on him a positive influence, as
have the sights and smells of the environment, and he intends to explore further
in his own manner of digging” (“Overview: ‘Digging’” 2012). Heaney’s “own
manner of digging” is apparent through the poem’s founding metaphor of the pen
as a spade. Heaney chooses to reject “the concept of writing as aggression, and
chooses the spade as his final analogue for his pen: the pen will serve as an
instrument of exploration and excavation, yielding warmth (like his grandfather’s
turf for fires) and nourishment (like his father’s potatoes)” (Vendler 29). Overall,
“Digging” represents Heaney’s journey toward both honoring and departing from
his history and finally feeling that his choice to being a poet is justified. While
his vocation may not involve physically digging like his father or grandfather
before him, he can still “dig” with his writing.

Works Cited
Buttel, Robert. Seamus Heaney. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1975. Print.

Collins, Floyd. Seamus Heaney: The Crisis of Identity. Newark, NJ: University of
Delaware Press, 2003. Print.

Duffy, Charles F. “Heaney's ‘Digging.’” The Explicator 46.4 (1988): 44-45. Print.

Heaney, Seamus. “From Feeling into Words.” Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-
2001.  New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. 15-27. Print.

Jackson, Alvin. “Northern Ireland: History since 1920.” Encyclopedia of Irish History and
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Overview: “Digging”. Poetry for Students. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. Web.
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Overview: “Digging”. Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2012

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Purdy, Anthony. “The Bog Body as Mnemotope: Nationalist Archaeologies in Heaney and
Tournier.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 249. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Web.
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Tamplin, Robert.  Seamus Heaney. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press, 1989.

Vendler, Helen. “Poetry: Seamus Heaney.” The Wilson Quarterly 20.1 (1996): 93-100.

Vendler, Helen. Seamus Heaney. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.