Follower Analysis

Author: poem of Seamus Heaney Type: poem Views: 40

My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horse strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

Submitted by Andrew Mayers

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||| Analysis | Critique | Overview Below |||

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I believe this poem is a representation of Heaney changing from a career (like his father) in agriculture to the transition into poetry. The last line implies how his father is now the one who doesn't understand his poetry. Looking in this view the active verbs of 'tripping, falling' can be seen as his sturggle to obtain the skills in the field of his fathers work. The verbs also contrats to his fathers skill displayes by 'An expert.' The short line emphasises the expertese.

| Posted on 2009-08-03 | by a guest

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I think that the end stanza indicates that heaney's dad is following him as a ghost. I also feel that heaney feels that he will never be able to live up to his dad.

| Posted on 2009-07-09 | by a guest

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Follower by Sheamus Heaney is a powerful poem, again about the young Heaney following his father around in admiration of his skill on the farm and such. Eventually he steps out of his fathers shadow and feels as if his father has become the one following him.
Overall, it's another poem where Heaney talks of his father, suggesting that his father had a big impact on his life.

| Posted on 2008-06-26 | by a guest

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