At a potato digging

Structure
• Part 1
- Each stanza has four lines
- Regular rhyme scheme- a b a b
- Just like how the work is regular- bend down, pick up the potato....
- Also emphasises timelessness of the work
• Part 2
- I line from a sonnet
- May show his love for potato digging but the fact that there is something missing
- Maybe they all felt like this after the famine
- Rhyme also suggests this as it is irregular and unreliable, may suggest the earth is
also like this

Language
• References to famine and feelings towards it
o “creel to the pit”
- They put the potatoes in a pit, but they rotted so no food was left
- Could be ambiguous and refer to where they put the dead bodies when the millions
were dying
o “crumbled surf”- see below
o “running sore”
- Reminds us that the Irish still remember the famine and the word “sore” makes us
think that this hurt will never heal
• Caesura
o “split/ by the spade”
- Emphasises the anxiousness of the labourers to find out if the harvest has been
successful or not
• Repetition
o “To be piled in pits; live skulls, blind-eyed. III Live skulls, blind eyed”
- Firstly talking about the potatoes and their shape and black spots and lack of fungus
- Exact same lines then refer to the dead bodies of people who died from the famine
- In part three it almost sounds like a nursery rhyme, because of the rhythm and
mono-syllabic words- which brings irony in to it as the line is so sinister
- Maybe this is meant to remind us that children died as well as adults
• Ambiguous
o “millions rotted along with it”
- Refers to the million of bodies as well as the potatoes
- Emphasises how something so small as a potato can cost lives to people who rely
on it
• References to future
o “timeless fasts”
- Suggestion that even though in this society there is little chance of a famine, it is
always a possibility
- Shows that they no longer trust the “bitch earth” and emphasises the
unpredictability of nature

Imagery
• Metaphor
o “fingers go dead in the cold”
- Reference to the famine
- Is referring to how fingers go numb in the cold- emphasises the hard work they do
and how sometimes- it fails and isn’t repaid
o “crumbled surf”
- Seaside metaphor- we are reminded of the wavelike appearance of the potato drills
• Personification
o “beaks of famine snipped at guts”
- Personification of beaks of the crows mentioned previously
- Sinister line as crows are associated with death
- Emphasises that the famine was inescapable

Sound
• Painful sounding words
o “snipped at guts”
- Sibilance and “snipped” sounds painful, almost like someone wincing in agony
• Showing the pace/ rhythm of labourers
o “Stoop to fill/ wicker creels. “
- The caesura and full stop mid line slows down the pace and corresponds to the slow
labour of the workers
• Assonance
o ”flotilla of gulls”
- Sounds cheerful and shows us their relief that the famine is over and they are no
longer reliant on the potato

Themes
• Religious references
o “Heads bow...black mother. Processional stooping...famine god”
- This reminds us of pagan festivals
- The famine god determines if the harvest will be fruitful or not
- “processional stooping” is what Catholics do when they go in church
- “black soil” is referring to the soil and land but is personified as a mother as they
rely on it to get food
- or referral to mother nature
- or referring to Mary, mother of Jesus
- all of these show that they worship and pray to the soil