Answer the following question and support your interpretation with evidence gained from a close reading analysis of the texts(s). Be sure to mention the author’s use of literary devices such as imagery, metaphor, irony, and symbol.
Your essay should be a multi-paragraph essay with an introduction and a thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your essay should include quotations and follow the conventions of standard English grammar and usage, as well as MLA in-text citation rules for quotations.
In “Digging,” by Seamus Heaney (Poem 1), and “For Saundra,” by Nikki Giovani, (Poem 2) the poets seem to reach the opposite conclusion: Heaney decides to write, but Giovani wonders about not writing. How does the speaker of each poem arrive at his/her conclusion, and which conclusion do you find more persuasive?
1
“Digging,” by Seamus Heaney (1966)
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
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
MLA Citation
Heaney, Seamus. “Digging.” Death of a Naturalist, Faber, 1966. pp. 12.
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1
“For Saundra,” by Nikki Giovanni (1968)
i wanted to write
a poem
that rhymes
but revolution doesn’t lend
itself to be-bopping
then my neighbor
who thinks i hate
asked – do you ever write
tree poems – i like trees
so i thought
i’ll write a beautiful green tree poem
peeked from my window
to check the image
noticed that the school yard was covered
with asphalt
no green – no trees grow
in manhattan
then, well, i thought the sky
i’ll do a big blue sky poem
but all the clouds have winged
low since no-Dick was elected
so i thought again
and it occurred to me
maybe i shouldn’t write
at all
but clean my gun
and check my kerosene supply
perhaps these are not poetic
times
at all
MLA Citation:
Giovanni, Nikki. “For Saundra.” The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni 1968-1998. William
Morrow, 2003. pp. 80.
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