t pen. (28-30) This ties him to his relatives, though twenty years removed, and say something about the nature of work in general. In essence, Heaney is saying that any type of labor done causes man to sublimate his humanity, in such a way that each and every man has the mechanical side of a manual laborer. Poetry takes on the same idea of harvesting potatoes, the treasure of Heaneys lavish island. Thus, the tone of this work lends an almost enlightened tone to the essence of these men-machine, in the sense that through their work, they create a poetic dance of sight and sound, one that visually and audibly reflects that of a machine, working day after day in monotony. Thus, Heaney finds beauty in the commonplace, and brings it out in his Digging, creating with his squat pen, as if it were a spade, and not a gun, as in line 2, as active as his imagination, not resting in the least, as in the first stanza. Seamus Heaney makes a potent statement about his heritage, and his work, in his first poem of his first book. His forebears, tough as the peat that they cut, take on the image of machines, through repetition and monotony, such that their visual image in his mind, and their sounds echoing in his ears, combine to create his hybrid of man and machine, a marriage recognized by God in its potency. Heaney juxtaposes their images to illustrate the constancy of their hard work, and ties them to him to create the cycle that his heritage lives and works in, active and proud. Through Digging, Heaney captures the essence of the Irish people, a people that works hard, tough, proud, and persistent, unable to be swayed by circumstances not under their control. Theirs is a plight of survival, of walking the fine line between man and machine to survive. Theirs is the plight of the Irish, caught eloquently by the squat pen of poet Seamus Heaney....
