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Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun. Under my window a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down. Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging.
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Digging By Seamus Heaney Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away
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Get the entire guide to “Digging” as a printable PDF. Download. The Full Text of “Digging” “Digging” Summary. “Digging” Themes. Labor and Craft. Where this theme appears in the poem: Lines 1-2. Lines 6-9. Lines 10-14.
- Summary
- Analysis of Digging
- Historical Significance
This poem is autobiographical in nature. The speaker, presumably Heaney, is sitting at his writing desk, preparing to write, when he hears his father working in the garden outside. This conjures memories of the speaker as a young boy, listening and watching as his father digs in the potato garden. The speaker marvels at how well his father digs, wh...
The poem is comprised of eight stanzas of varying lengths. There is no set rhyme scheme, though some of the lines do rhyme.
While this poem certainly is not political in nature, it does give a glimpse into the lives of hardworking Irishmen. In previous generations, men had to dig for both food and fuel. Because Ireland does not have a wealth of coal, men often had to dig through the bogs to acquire enough peat moss that could be burned as an alternative means of fuel.
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- Poetry Analyst
Seamus Heaney (1939-) Digging Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun. Under my window a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
“Digging” is a relatively short poem (thirty-one lines) in free verse. While it has no set pattern of doing so, it breaks up into stanzas of two to five lines. The presence in the poem of the...
Summary and Analysis: "Digging" opens Seamus Heaney's first collection and declares his intention as a poet. The poem begins with the speaker, who looks upon himself, his pen posed upon his paper, as he listens to the noise of his father digging outside the window.
