Blog Assignment 1

Seamus Heaney uses a lot of different literary devices to really make the poem "Digging" work. In just the second line, he uses the simile "The squat pen rests; snug as a gun." He uses this to show how his short little pen has great importance- it is like his very-own weapon. 

Heaney also uses hyperbole a few paragraphs later when he says "Bends low, comes up twenty years away." I took this as meaning that his father, being a very hard worker, bends down (digging), and doesn't stand back up for a distance. Obviously it wasn't "twenty years," but a long time, none the less. 

In the following line he uses a synechdoche when he says "Stooping in rhythm through potato drills." We see in the footnote that potato drills are actually "small furrows in which seeds are sown." He uses the simple term "potato drills" to represent all of the lines of seeds his father has sewn. 

In the next several lines, Heaney uses a lot of useful imagery, speaking of how his father is gardening, and how his grandfather was better at digging than any man he'd ever seen. He talks about bringing him a bottle of milk, and really describes it in a colorful, descriptive way. 

In the last few lines of the poem, Heaney says:

"Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it."

In these lines, Heaney does a few things. The first thing that jumped out to me was the use of repetition from the first two lines. These lines are used to begin and to end the poem. 

The other thing I noticed was how symbolic the statement is. He compares himself to his father, and uses his father's talent at sowing in the fields in comparison to his writing. 

The spade to his father is equal to Heaney's pen.