At a Potato Digging

by Seamus Heaney

Context
The poem deals with two different potato harvests. One is the harvest from the present day (written in the 60s) that goes successfully and which delivers a rich crop. The second potato harvest looks back to the famine of 1845 when the crop failed and many people starved. Whilst the famine is no longer a threat, its ongoing fear remains and this can be seen in the use of religious language throughout the poem.
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Potato Famine
The Irish Potato Famine occurred in Ireland in 1845-49 when the potato crop failed in successive years. As a direct consequence of the famine, Ireland's population of almost 8,400,000 in 1844 had fallen to 6,600,000 by 1851. About 1,100,000 people died from starvation or from typhus and other famine-related diseases. The number of Irish who emigrated during the famine may have reached 1.5 million.
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The poem begins with Heaney describing workers in a potato field in Ireland. They follow a machine that turns up the crop and they put these into a basket and then store them.

AT A POTATO DIGGING
I A mechanical digger wrecks the drill, Spins up a dark shower of roots and mould. Labourers swarm in behind, stoop to fill Wicker creels. Fingers go dead in the cold. Like crows attacking crow-black fields, they stretch A higgledy line from hedge to headland; Some pairs keep breaking ragged ranks to fetch A full creel to the pit and straighten, stand Tall for a moment but soon stumble back To fish a new load from the crumbled surf. Heads bow, trucks bend, hands fumble towards the black Mother. Processional stooping through the turf Turns work to ritual. Centuries Of fear and homage to the famine god Toughen the muscles behind their humbled knees, Make a seasonal altar of the sod. II Flint-white, purple. They lie scattered Like inflated pebbles. Native to the blank hutch of clay where the halved seed shot and clotted these knobbed and slit-eyed tubers seem the petrified hearts of drills. Split by the spade, they show white as cream. Good smells exude from crumbled earth. The rough bark of humus erupts knots of potatoes (a clean birth) whose solid feel, whose wet inside promises taste of ground and root. To be piled in pits; live skulls, blind-eyed. III Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on wild higgledy skeletons scoured the land in 'forty-five,' wolfed the blighted root and died. The new potato, sound as stone, putrified when it had lain three days in the long clay pit. Millions rotted along with it. Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard, faces chilled to a plucked bird. In a million wicker huts beaks of famine snipped at guts. A people hungering from birth, grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth, were grafted with a great sorrow. Hope rotted like a marrow. Stinking potatoes fouled the land, pits turned pus in filthy mounds: and where potato diggers are you still smell the running sore. IV Under a white flotilla of gulls The rhythm deadens, the workers stop. White bread and tea in bright canfuls Are served for lunch. Dead-beat, they flop Down in the ditch and take their fill, Thankfully breaking timeless fasts; Then, stretched on the faithless ground, spill Libations of cold tea, scatter crusts.

The second section of the poem involves the healthy potatoes being described.

The third section writes about the famine of the past. Fungus destroyed the entire crop of potatoes and this happened for three consecutive years.

In the final section of the poem, Heaney returns to the first section of the poem Ireland in the 1960s at lunchtime. The workers sit happily, with food to eat.

AT A POTATO DIGGING
I A mechanical digger wrecks the drill, Spins up a dark shower of roots and mould. Labourers swarm in behind, stoop to fill Wicker creels. Fingers go dead in the cold. Like crows attacking crow-black fields, they stretch A higgledy line from hedge to headland; Some pairs keep breaking ragged ranks to fetch A full creel to the pit and straighten, stand Tall for a moment but soon stumble back To fish a new load from the crumbled surf. Heads bow, trucks bend, hands fumble towards the black Mother. Processional stooping through the turf Turns work to ritual. Centuries Of fear and homage to the famine god Toughen the muscles behind their humbled knees, Make a seasonal altar of the sod. II Flint-white, purple. They lie scattered Like inflated pebbles. Native to the blank hutch of clay where the halved seed shot and clotted these knobbed and slit-eyed tubers seem the petrified hearts of drills. Split by the spade, they show white as cream. Good smells exude from crumbled earth. The rough bark of humus erupts knots of potatoes (a clean birth) whose solid feel, whose wet inside promises taste of ground and root. To be piled in pits; live skulls, blind-eyed. III Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on wild higgledy skeletons scoured the land in 'forty-five,' wolfed the blighted root and died. The new potato, sound as stone, putrified when it had lain three days in the long clay pit. Millions rotted along with it. Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard, faces chilled to a plucked bird. In a million wicker huts beaks of famine snipped at guts. A people hungering from birth, grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth, were grafted with a great sorrow. Hope rotted like a marrow. Stinking potatoes fouled the land, pits turned pus in filthy mounds: and where potato diggers are you still smell the running sore. IV Under a white flotilla of gulls The rhythm deadens, the workers stop. White bread and tea in bright canfuls Are served for lunch. Dead-beat, they flop Down in the ditch and take their fill, Thankfully breaking timeless fasts; Then, stretched on the faithless ground, spill Libations of cold tea, scatter crusts.

The first and last sections have a loose iambic metre and a clear ABAB rhyme scheme - which breaks down only in the poem's final line. Why might Heaney do this?

The second section has fewer rhymes in an irregular pattern. Lines and sections run into each other.

The third section uses rhyme in pairs: AABB and so on.

We now rely on technology to dig the land. Is this natural? Vivid image of the power of the machine over the land. Mans power over nature?

Wreck the rows in which the potatoes are planted. May also suggest the routine of the work.
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A mechanical digger wrecks the drill, Spins up a dark shower of roots and mould. Labourers swarm in behind, stoop to fill Wicker creels. Fingers go dead in the cold. Like crows attacking crow-black fields, they stretch A higgledy line from hedge to headland; Some pairs keep breaking ragged ranks to fetch A full creel to the pit and straighten, stand

Could this also have military connotations? Struggling to live of the land.

Suggests the vast number of labourers involved

stoop Might this suggest prostration as well as the back breaking labour?

Tall for a moment but soon stumble back The work is To fish a new load from the crumbled surf. hard and Heads bow, trucks bend, hands fumble towards the black uncomfortable. Mother. Processional stooping through the turf Turns work to ritual. Centuries Of fear and homage to the famine god Toughen the muscles behind their humbled knees, Make a seasonal altar of the sod.

Why else might Heaney have chosen this phrase?

Enjambment at this and other points in the poem suggest the H unending nature of the work

Links the people to nature both as animals and as a description of the land. Why crows? Scavengers? Birds of Death A full basket of potatoes to be stored Proud of their labours and enjoying a short break

Again the labour is referred to in terms of a battle. Perhaps a battle for survival?
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The workers could be seen as soldiers in the fight

A mechanical digger wrecks the drill, Spins up a dark shower of roots and mould. Labourers swarm in behind, stoop to fill Wicker creels. Fingers go dead in the cold. Like crows attacking crow-black fields, they stretch A higgledy line from hedge to headland; Some pairs keep breaking ragged ranks to fetch A full creel to the pit and straighten, stand

Emphasises the sheer number of them involved

Tall for a moment but soon stumble back The respite is To fish a new load from the crumbled surf. Heads bow, trucks bend, hands fumble towards the blackbrief and they stumble back to Mother. Processional stooping through the turf Turns work to ritual. Centuries Of fear and homage to the famine god Toughen the muscles behind their humbled knees, Make a seasonal altar of the sod.
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work, emphasising the exhausting nature what they do

What is the effect of this metaphor on the reader? Gives a strong visual image of the land after the drills are wrecked.

Does it suggest the skill of the people? Bowed in prayer?

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A mechanical digger wrecks the drill, Spins up a dark shower of roots and mould. Labourers swarm in behind, stoop to fill Wicker creels. Fingers go dead in the cold.

Prostration? Is this an almost religious experience?

Like crows attacking crow-black fields, they stretch A higgledy line from hedge to headland; Some pairs keep breaking ragged ranks to fetch A full creel to the pit and straighten, stand Tall for a moment but soon stumble back Is this a pagan To fish a new load from the crumbled surf. Heads bow, trucks bend, hands fumble towards the black God that they Mother. Processional stooping through the turf fear? Turns work to ritual. Centuries Of fear and homage to the famine god Toughen the muscles behind their humbled knees, Make a seasonal altar of the sod.
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Giver of life. Protector. Acknowledgement of importance

Is Heaney suggesting that God forsook them in the famine?

Assonance and alliteration stress the natural links between the potatoes and the land The second section has fewer rhymes in an irregular pattern, perhaps mimicking the irregular sizes and shapes of the potatoes Potatoes piled as bodies once were

Repeated image of death linked to the potato across generations by memories of the famine

II Flint-white, purple. They lie scattered Like inflated pebbles. Native to the blank hutch of clay where the halved seed shot and clotted these knobbed and slit-eyed tubers seem the petrified hearts of drills. Split by the spade, they show white as cream. Good smells exude from crumbled earth. The rough bark of humus erupts knots of potatoes (a clean birth) whose solid feel, whose wet inside promises taste of ground and root. To be piled in pits; live skulls, blind-eyed.

Heart of the land

Each year the potato harvest can be an anxious process, as the workers smell the potatoes and feel them for firmness - making sure they are free of the H blight.

Images of death abound once more and these are echoed in the next stanza about the famine

Repeated image but this time it is starving people who are skulls and blind-eyed 45 needs no year date because the event is such a part of Irelands social consciousness

III Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on wild higgledy skeletons scoured the land in 'forty-five,' wolfed the blighted root and died. The new potato, sound as stone, putrified when it had lain three days in the long clay pit. Millions rotted along with it. Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard, faces chilled to a plucked bird. In a million wicker huts beaks of famine snipped at guts. A people hungering from birth, grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth, were grafted with a great sorrow. Hope rotted like a marrow. Stinking potatoes fouled the land, pits turned pus in filthy mounds: and where potato diggers are you still smell the running sore. H

balanced implies the weakness of people and their skeletal hunger. Higgledy people reflect the higgledy lines in which they work now (section 1)

Animal savagery suggesting the hardness of the times

They still ate the bad potatoes but couldnt survive

The language is incredibly negative and harsh. Much like the times they are describing

III Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on wild higgledy skeletons scoured the land in 'forty-five,' wolfed the blighted root and died. The new potato, sound as stone, putrified when it had lain three days in the long clay pit. Millions rotted along with it. Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard, faces chilled to a plucked bird. In a million wicker huts beaks of famine snipped at guts. A people hungering from birth, grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth, were grafted with a great sorrow. Hope rotted like a marrow. Stinking potatoes fouled the land, pits turned pus in filthy mounds: and where potato diggers are you still smell the running sore. H

Ambiguous phrase, the people rotted along with the potatoes and died

Heaney describes the false hope of a sound new potato which rots and dies in the pit

Vivid, visual account of the physical effects of the famine

III Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on wild higgledy skeletons scoured the land in 'forty-five,' wolfed the blighted root and died. The new potato, sound as stone, putrified when it had lain three days in the long clay pit. Millions rotted along with it.

wicker emphasises the simplicity of their lives but also links back to their wicker creels. Both are devoid of potatoes due to the famine

Snipping, metaphorical beaks of hunger attack the guts of the hungry. Could this link back to the images of crows earlier on? Suggesting hard work Marked with sorrow?

Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard, faces chilled to a plucked bird. In a million wicker huts beaks of famine snipped at guts. A people hungering from birth, grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth, were grafted with a great sorrow. Hope rotted like a marrow. Stinking potatoes fouled the land, pits turned pus in filthy mounds: and where potato diggers are you still smell the running sore. H

Life-long hunger and misery is emphasised here The earth is not mother but bitch now. Cruel and forgiving (the famine god?)

III Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on wild higgledy skeletons scoured the land in 'forty-five,' wolfed the blighted root and died. The new potato, sound as stone, putrified when it had lain three days in the long clay pit. Millions rotted along with it. Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard, faces chilled to a plucked bird. In a million wicker huts beaks of famine snipped at guts. A people hungering from birth, grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth, were grafted with a great sorrow. Hope rotted like a marrow. Stinking potatoes fouled the land, pits turned pus in filthy mounds: and where potato diggers are you still smell the running sore. H

As the potatoes did

filthy mounds of both potatoes but also of the bodies piled up. (Remember, over 1 million people died during the famine)

you why has he used the second person at this point?

Last two lines return to the present tense

Does it suggest the immediacy of the last two lines- this is now

The knowledge of the famine is still an open wound for the people of Ireland

Through the tiredness of a days work but the image could be likened to the weak falling of the famished over a century earlier

flotilla maintains the military and sea-faring images of the first section but the crows of earlier are contrasted now with the gulls

Not in the pit anymore and no longer hungry they can take their fill

IV Under a white flotilla of gulls The rhythm deadens, the workers stop. White bread and tea in bright canfuls Are served for lunch. Dead-beat, they flop

Down in the ditch and take their fill, Thankfully breaking timeless fasts; Why has Heaney Then, stretched on the faithless ground, spill chosen the word They still dont trust Libations of cold tea, scatter crusts. timeless? the ground. Compare the past and present as The religious imagery is repeated at the end as the shown in the poem. give offerings to appease the famine god H mentioned earlier.

They take their teabreak. No longer reliant just on potatoes for food they do still make their living form digging them

Comparisons
A Difficult Birth / The Field-Mouse Both poems look at the natural world and the way in which it operates. Inversnaid This poem takes delight in the natural world, describing the beauty of the town of Inversnaid as it has not been touched by human hand. Patrolling Barnegat In common with At a Potato Digging, this poem enables the reader to understand the power of the natural world and we appreciate the extent to which it can have an impact on the lives of human beings.

What other poems and ideas can be used for comparison?

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Themes
Nature The poem deals with the natural world and the different aspects of nature can be seen in the reference to the earth as the black mother that gives life and also the bitch earth that is capable of inflicting great suffering. Suffering The suffering of the people of Ireland is described in detail in the poem and we understand the extent of the misery that was caused by the famine. The Past Heaneys desire to make connections between the past and present is very important to the poem a link is made between events more than a century apart.

Review
1. Once again digging is used symbolically by Heaney. Explain how. 2. How, in this poem, does Heaney connect past and present (think about language and images used)? 3. What view does the poem give of man's relationship with the earth? 4. Does the poet really think of the earth as a bitch and faithless? 5. Modern readers in the west may no longer have a sense of where our food comes from. How does this poem challenge us not to take things for granted? 6. How does this poem explore ideas of religion, ritual and ceremony?
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