Miracle on St David’s Day

Digging
Structure and Form

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

• However, the last verse ensures that his sense of regret is only momentary as he
Seamus Heaney declares that he’ll ‘dig’ with his ‘squat pen’. This is essentially what he has
achieved (metaphorically) by writing this poem.

Structure and Form

• The rhythm and stress patterns of the poem accentuate the workman like
drudgery, with the use of monosyllabic words.

Comparative Ideas

• This poem is about memory so it might usefully be compared with Miracle on St

David’s Day or any of Heaney’s other poems in the collection.

• It is about family relationships so it might be compared with Follower, Old Man,

Old Man, Once Upon A Time.

• It is also about cultural pressures so it might be compared with Still I Rise and
Once Upon a Time.