Poem, Poet, Social Change

The Poem, The Poet, and Social Change

Learning Team C: Marion Rasmussen, Suzanne Supplee & Shannon Taylor

ENG 306

December 21, 2015

Melissa Mason

The Poem, The Poet, and Social Change

Life is always evolving. People are always learning and living their lives based on what they have learned and making changes and adjustments based on that knowledge. This shift in changes for society has been going on since the beginning of time. Since poetry has been around through the centuries, it too has shifted with topic choices as well as tones, twisting and turning, reflective of the environments in which the poets lived during that time period. Poets often used their artistic ability to share with the world what others might have been afraid too, whether it was because it was forbidden by government or just a subject that was taboo. Three poets and their poems are being used to show the differences between the poetry of today with the poetry of the past. “Digging” by Seamus Heaney, “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath and “Childhood by Margaret Walker” will each be discussed, showing their similarities as well as their differences to earlier poetry.

Digging

While some would scoff at the life of a writer, the poet’s pen is a mighty tool, one that awakens the masses and elicits change in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. Poet Seamus Heaney, born in Northern Ireland, was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 for works described as having “lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past” (Poetry Foundation). In his poem “Digging,” it is clear the speaker reveres the farming profession of both his father and grandfather, though he will choose a different path, that of writer. This poem pays homage to the traditions of Heaney’s Irish ancestors, yet it also validates the ways in which the pen is as forceful a tool as any spade or gun. The roles of men in modern...