Anthology - Follower

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.

THEMES:

  • paternal/parental relationships

  • filial love

  • memory

  • childhood

  • gender roles

  • identity

FORM:

  • ballad form

    • reminiscent of the oral storytelling traditions of Ireland

STRUCTURE:

  • six regular quatrains

    • represents regularity and consistency of father’s work

  • rough ABAB rhyme scheme

    • alternation suggests lack of synchronicity

  • masculine rhyme

    • represents toxic masculinity and expectations

  • regular metre

    • represents regularity and consistency of father’s work

  • circular structure

    • represents role reversal involved in growing up

    • represents inheritance and expectations from parents

LANGUAGE:

  • simile, synecdoche, sibilance, maritime imagery - “his shoulders globed like a full sail strung“

  • declarative, period - “an expert.“

  • juxtaposition, sibilance, semantic field of agriculture - “fell sometimes on the polished sod“

  • passive voice, semantic field of agriculture, colloquialism, zoomorphism - “he rode me“

  • tricolon, enjambment, zoomorphism - “tripping, falling, // yapping always“

  • focus shift, plosives, personal pronoun - “I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake“

  • tense shift, enjambment, repetition - “but today // it is my father who keeps stumbling // behind me“

  • assonance, maritime imagery - “dipping and rising to his plod“

  • enjambment, synecdoche, semantic field of agriculture - “follow // in his broad shadow around the farm“

CONTEXT:

  • written by Seamus Heaney

  • semi-autobiographical; born eldest of nine in Northern Ireland to a farming family

  • poetry is often about the past and traditions of rural life