Reading and Interpretation of the Poem

-Group 1 recites the 1st stanza. Then, the succeeding group interprets it.

 “Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sounds

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down”

(The speaker was holding a pen. Then he looked at his window. He saw his father digging the
gravelly soil and he felt sad.)

  -Group 2 recites the 2nd stanza. Then, the succeeding group interprets it.

“Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.”

(Even though the father felt body pain for many years, he still has to dig the soil and plant the
potato seeds.)

 -Group 3 recites the 3rd stanza. Then, the succeeding group interprets it.

“The coarse of boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out all tops, buried and bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.”

(The father bent his knees and pulled the potato from the soil. This brought delight to his heart
because finally he harvested the fruit of his labor.)

-Group 4 recites the 4th stanza. Then, the succeeding group interprets it.
 “By God, the old man could handle a spade

Just like his old man.”

“My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Tuner’s bog.”

(His father’s strength to do such difficult work came from the Almighty and same thing with his
grandfather. His grandfather has done more work than others because it was been part of his life)

-Group 5 recites the 5th and 6th stanzas. Then, the succeeding group interprets it.

(Once I carried his milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up.

“To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking, and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.”

(The speaker remembered an incident when he brought bottle of milk to his grandfather. He
drunk the milk immediately and returned on what he was doing. He noticed how hard their work
was.)

-Group 6 recites the 7th stanza. Then, the succeeding group interprets it.

 “The cold smell of potato mound, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts in edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.”

(There were fertilizers scattered on the edge of the of the potato from it the speaker had realized
something. It was he couldn’t do the same work of his father and grandfather. )

-The teacher recites the last stanza. Then, group 1 interprets it.