Follower Commentary

Follower

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

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright-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 hobnailed 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 around 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.

Seamus Heaney

In the poem "Follower" by Seamus Heaney, the poet uses detailed description of hard work and labor to exhibit a fine tuned connection that him and his father had when he was young. Its obvious that the relationship between the father and son seems to be very strong and loving. To break down the poem, in the follower the son of the father in follows in his fathers footsteps and becomes a farmer similar to his dad but ironically, in the end the roles are switched so it's the father who is now following the son like he did when he was young.

In the first couple of stanzas the poet describes the line of work that his father does and set the scenery where he followed his father around. He is described as being an expert of his work to an extent where his horses follow his exact commands. The line "strained at his clicking tongue" shows the difficult job of the horses, and, it shows us how skilled Heaney's father really is. His father's strength and power are also brouhgt out through the simile of "His shoulders globed like a full sail strung Between the shafts and the furrow." This just add to hard working nature of his father.

The structure of this poem is very unique in its own ways because it is written in six stanzas of four lines each. The first four stanzas describe Heaney's respect for his father and his abilities to do hard work. The next five and a half lines shows how the poet wanted to grow up to be like his father and follow in his footstep. But in the end the poet feel as if he gets in the way of his father's work. Then there is an ironic twist in the last two lines where his father seemingly switched rolls with him nad now he is the hard working farmer and his dad is now the "follower."