The poem in free-verse
that grabbed my attention was the "Digging" by Seamus Heaney. My
overall impression of the poem is that it was a poem about a man who didn't
follow in the footsteps of his family. Both his father and grandfather were
great diggers for potatoes, but he is not. He reveals at the start and end
of the poem that he "digs" with his pen-- that he is a
poet--different than his father and grandfather. I enjoyed the repetition of
the "old man" in this stanza: "By
God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man."
It made me stop and reread it. He was using this as an effective way to
get the message across to his audience that his father and grandfather were so
similar. His olfactory imagery of the potatoes is very realistic:
"The cold smell of
potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat,
the curt cuts of an edge"
I was impressed by how
much detail he put into potato digging. Also in that stanza, he applied
enjambment after "slap", but the enjambment seemed to me accidental
in order to keep within the aesthetic structure of the poem. However I can't
help but wonder if he had put deeper thought behind it. The line "Once I carried him milk in a bottle" also
left me curious about his intentions. This is a very strangely worded sentence,
but I can't seem to find the importance of this line. I don't see why he would
want it to stand out.
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