One more (actually many more to come...)

i dunno who's grp is this, i dont rmber seeing this grp's answers at all. zzzz

Part 1
i) How does the poet show his respect for the skills, strength and endurance of previous generations?

Overall Meaning of the poet’s intention
- Shows his respect for the previous generations’ efforts, skills, endurance and strength in terms of digging.

POET’S SHOW OF RESPECT THROUGH…

1) Skills

“Nicking and slicing neatly, heavy sods”
The poet’s father’s is skillful in digging. It is shown through the expertise of his digging skills as he digs neatly with accumulated years of techniques. The accuracy, the skillfulness of his digging methods are all reflected through the generation. The poet’s father himself, his expertise in potato growing, represents himself and all the other previous generations’ skills. Not any Tom, Dick or Harry can as well as them if they lack in skills. It takes skills to dig as well as them. Anybody can dig, but without skills, the turf dug would be messy instead of the neat slicing that comes from skills.

“ clean rasping sound” , “ curt cuts of an edge”
With experience, comes accuracy, hence the exact notion of the poet’s father on the precise spot to make a “curt cuts” into the ground that makes the desired turf for potato growing. It takes many years of experience to acquire such accurate skills of digging.

2) Strength

“ rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep”
The previous generations, represented through the poet’s father, possessed great strength. As seen from the poet’s father’s ability to uproot parts of the plants above the ground and to be able to achieve this feat, he had to possess a lot of strength. Besides only a strong man could bury the edge deep.

“over his shoulder, going down and down”
To dig repeatedly without stopping to rest, stamina, strength and endurance are required. Through this, the poet shows his respect for his father and the previous generations’ strength.

3) Endurance

“straining rump”
The poet’s father injured his back by stretching too much or overexertion in digging turfs for the potatoes. In spite of his back being in great pain, he still continued digging. Even though he was unwell from all the digging, he still endured all the hardships and went on digging. His endurance is greatly reflected here.

“bends low, comes up twenty years away”
For over twenty years, the poet’s father has been digging, and now he is still digging, everyday with fail. He has been at the job for twenty years already and he is still going on, this indicates his everlasting endurance.

Part 2
ii) Show how the poetic devices contribute to the overall meaning of the poem.

Overall Meaning of the poet’s intention
-Shows his respect for the previous generations’ efforts, skills, endurance and strength in terms of digging.


POETIC DEVICES
1) Simile

“the squat pen rests; snug as a gun”
Gun → able to leave a mark when fired
Pen → able to put things down in paper
Gun +Pen → the poet hopes that the poem that he wrote would leave a mark / an impression on its readers and that his previous generations’ efforts would not go unrecognized, but down into history.


2) Personification

“To scatter new potatoes that we picked, loving their cool hardness in our hands”
their → we usually refer to potatoes as “it” instead of their . The poet’s appreciation and gratitude for the potatoes, the efforts put in in their growth, the poet’s father’s strength, skills, and endurance. If the poet lacked in appreciation and gratitude, he would have written “ loving its cool hardness in our hands” . He gave personification to the potatoes.

their → So much sweat, effort, overexertion, endurance, strength and skills were put into the harvesting of potatoes, the poet no longer refers to the potato as “it” but their, treating the potatoes as that of human.

3) Rhyming

“Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into the gravelly ground

sound → ground→ rhymes

The poet wants to leave the readers with a deep impression, thus by using rhymes, the poem would sound catchy and enable for the reader to recall this poem easily.

4) Alliteration

“squelch and slap of soggy peat”
The words: squelch, slap, soggy all begin with “s”. The alliteration is on the letter “s”. This emphasizes on the peat’s thickness and the environment. It shows that the previous generations did not mind the unpleasant environment that they had to work in and still continued enduring the digging, persevering, harvesting and growing potatoes.

UGHHH, whats alliteration huh? oh man, good luck for lit ppl!