Tools
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work they go! This poem deals a lot with men (of three generations), their work, and their tools. But before you write this one off as a poem for manly men and no on...
Earth (Dirt)
We discover earth in many different ways in this poem. Heaney talks about the sound, texture, and smell of it, and it seems to have left quite an impression in the speaker's mind in association wit...
Potatoes
Potatoes and peat play a similar symbolic role as dirt. If the earth is the hard work on which the speaker is brought up, then the potato and peat are the rewards at the heart of it. They were what...