There are fifteen poems in the GCSE Love and Relationships anthology.

For your exam, you will be given one poem in full, printed on the page, and you will be asked to compare this poem to another from the anthology.

All of the GCSE English Literature course is closed-book, meaning that you will need to learn at least three lines from each poem.

It is possible to get top marks for this question by making sure that you know the following:

• What the poem is about

• What the poem means

• The methods the poet uses to convey their message

• The links between the ideas of other poems in the anthology

Synopsis

This section includes:

• A general overview of the poem

• A detailed look at the poem line-by-line

• Analysis of the poem, giving Seamus Heaney’s intention and message

A General Overview of the Poem

Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Follower’ captures a vivid childhood memory, where the speaker reflects on his father’s expertise in working the land. The poem portrays the father as a skilled and powerful figure, guiding the speaker. By the end, the speaker recognizes the shifting relationship and power dynamic as he matures.

Line-by-Line

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.

The speaker of the poem describes his father – a farmer, bold and strong.

His father had control over the animals on his farm.

The first-person narration depicts the father as in charge and competent – this builds a sense of respect.

An expert. He would set the wing

And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.

The sod rolled over without breaking.

The speaker focuses on how good his father is at his job.

The vivid description of the father shows how powerful memory can be.

The caesura after ‘An expert.’ emphasises his prowess – it draws our attention to this competence.

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.

The attention turns to the horses, symbolic of power and strength, yet being direted by his father.

There is a sense of focus within the father.

The focus on ‘sweating’ shows the hard labour of farm-work, emphasising the difficulties the father faced.

This is a vivid memory that shows the clear influence of the father.

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.

The speaker remembers the past – himself as a child – we see the speaker finding it difficult to move through the fields.

His father helped him during these difficult times.

There is clearly a close bond between father and son.

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.

The speaker would like to copy his father’s actions.

There is a desire to be like his father as the father is clearly very influential.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,

Yapping always. But today

The speaker sees that they must have been a difficult child.

The use of ‘nuisance’ suggests a sense of annoyance.

The tricolon: ‘tripping, falling, yapping’ shows the son’s actions to be clumsy and frustrating – but in an endearing way.

It is my father who keeps stumbling

Behind me, and will not go away

The speaker shifts – they are now older.

We see a tender moment – a realisation that the father is now older, weaker, childlike.

The relationship has changed – now the father follows the son.

Writer’s Methods

This section aims to support your revision by providing you with concrete and clear examples of methods that Seamus Heaney uses.

Remember: methods support meaning, not the other way round. You will gain more marks focusing your essays on the big ideas of the poems and then supporting these ideas with the methods that the writer uses.

Form

Seamus Heaney’s narrative poem honors the close bond between father and son while exploring the evolving dynamics of their relationship, particularly in terms of strength and dependence.

The childhood memory is presented through the first-person voice of an adult son, offering a reflective perspective on the past. Heaney explores the shifting power dynamic between father and son, contrasting the speaker’s childhood dependence with his father’s later vulnerability. The poem’s cyclical structure reinforces this theme, highlighting the inevitability of change in family relationships.

As a child, he “stumbled in his hob-nob wake,” but now, his father “keeps stumbling.” This reversal emphasizes the cycle of life, as the once-dependent son grows up and takes on the role of caretaker. Heaney uses a caesura to mark this transformation: “Yapping always. But today.” The shift in tone signals the speaker’s realization that while he once relied on his father, it is now his father who depends on him.

Structure

The poem’s steady rhythmic structure reflects the speaker’s composed reflections on his father, presenting their relationship as stable and enduring. However, Heaney’s alternating rhyme scheme introduces a sense of tension, mirroring the son’s struggle to meet his father’s expectations.

Heaney’s poem consists of four quatrains with lines of similar length, creating a disciplined and controlled structure. As the speaker recalls a childhood memory of working on the farm, his tone remains both composed and nostalgic, reflecting the stability of his relationship with his father.

Heaney employs half-rhymes to represent the speaker and perfect rhymes to symbolize the father, reinforcing their contrasting roles.

The rhyme between “I wanted to grow up and plough” and “All I ever did was follow” conveys the son’s longing to match his father’s skill but also his perceived inability to do so.

Similarly, “To close one eye, stiffen my arm” and “In his broad shadow round the farm” highlight the father’s steadfast and disciplined nature. The speaker’s tone carries a subtle tension, suggesting his deep desire to follow in his father’s footsteps, while the father’s perfect rhyme scheme reflects his unshakable presence and authority.

Language

Seamus Heaney employs natural imagery to capture the speaker’s memory of his father teaching him how to work on the farm, portraying him as a hardworking and disciplined figure worthy of admiration. Throughout the poem, dynamic verbs emphasize the father’s active role in the speaker’s upbringing. However, by the end, these verbs shift in meaning, reflecting the father’s growing dependence on his son as he ages.

The semantic field of labor emphasizes the father’s physical strength and capability.

Verbs such as “worked,” “strained,” “narrowed,” and “angled” depict his efforts as steady and precise, reinforcing his skill and discipline.

Sensory imagery like “sweating team” and “clicking tongue” portrays the father as in control, further highlighting his expertise.

Heaney uses vivid imagery to emphasize the father’s powerful presence, presenting him as a master of his craft. The simile “His shoulders globed like a full sail strung” compares his father’s physical strength to a sail, evoking a sense of natural power and resilience.

Context

At MyEdSpace, we use this analogy to discuss context – ketchup, salt and chips.

If you ordered a portion of chips, and asked for salt, you wouldn’t then dump the salt into the corner of your chips and start dipping each individual chip into the salt.

When you put salt on your chips, you sprinkle it over, sparingly, so as to give a good coverage of salt across the chips as a whole. Context is just like salt on chips.

Context is not ketchup – because it would be appropriate to squeeze ketchup into the corner of your plate and dip each chip in (and in fact, that is advised).

So when you’re including contextual information in your essays, sprinkle it across the essay, just like you sprinkle salt on your chips.

Let’s link the context to the key ideas and themes of the poem.

Family Connections

Seamus Heaney, the eldest son of a farmer, was raised in traditional, rural Ireland, an upbringing that deeply influenced his poetry.

In Follower, he depicts his father skillfully working a plough with horses, showcasing his strength and expertise.

The poem reflects the son’s deep admiration for his capable and dependable father, illustrating the strong bond between them.

Through the speaker’s memory, Heaney explores traditional family values, particularly the dynamic between father and son.

The son expresses his childhood desire to follow in his father’s footsteps, aspiring to be just like him.

His father is portrayed as a powerful and authoritative figure, described as “broad” and firmly in control of the farm.

Acceptance and Independence

Seamus Heaney’s poem Follower was published in his 1966 anthology Death of a Naturalist, a collection that explores his rural childhood and experiences working on the farm with his father, learning the demands of manual labor.

The poem highlights the lessons passed down from father to son, reflecting the expectation that, as the eldest child, he would follow in his father’s footsteps.

Possibly autobiographical, the poem examines the dependence between father and son and how this dynamic shifts as the parent grows older.

However, by the end, the tone changes as the son appears impatient with his father’s presence, now experiencing their closeness differently.

He reflects on his aging father, who is now “stumbling” and no longer moving “away,” suggesting a reversal of roles.

The poem subtly implies that the son has not chosen to follow the same path as his father, emphasizing the changing nature of their relationship.

Comparison

You are required to write an essay in your exam that is a comparison of the ideas and themes explored in two poems from the Love and Relationships anthology. Therefore, it is very important to revise the poems in pairs and to enter the exam with an idea of what poem you will choose to compare once you know what the named poem is.

‘Follower’ and ‘Eden Rock’

Both Seamus Heaney’s Follower and Charles Causley’s Eden Rock feature male speakers reflecting on cherished memories of their parents, highlighting their profound influence and significance. While Heaney’s poem explores the evolving roles within family relationships and the son's growing need for independence, Causley’s poem focuses on the emotional impact of separation and the longing for absent parents.

Similarities:

Both poems describe their parents with a tender admiration and clear sense of love.

Evidence and Analysis

Heaney’s speaker fondly recalls a day spent with his father in childhood, using enjambment and a regular quatrain structure to establish a sentimental tone. Heaney’s speaker portrays his father as a commanding and respected figure through vivid imagery. His shoulders are described as “globed like a full sail strung,” emphasizing his strength, while the horse responds to his authority, straining at his “clicking tongue.”. 

Similarly, Charles Causley’s first-person speaker recalls a vivid memory of a picnic with his parents. Enjambment contributes to a calm and nostalgic tone, portraying the memory as reassuring and comforting. The poem’s regular structure reflects the steady and stabilizing influence of his parents in his life. The speaker also recalls his parents as he saw them in childhood, capturing their presence through detailed imagery. His mother is described in a “sprigged dress” and spreading a “stiff white cloth,” symbolizing her purity and grace. His father is depicted wearing “Genuine Irish Tweed” with a small “trembling” dog at his feet, reinforcing his familiar and comforting presence.

Differences:

While Seamus Heaney’s poem concludes with a speaker seeking independence, Charles Causley’s poem ends with a speaker struggling to accept the separation from their parents.

Evidence and Analysis

In Follower, the speaker transitions from reflecting on his father to expressing frustration that his father “will not go away.” As an adult, he now recognizes that he was once a “nuisance” as a child. A caesura marks this shift in tone: “yapping always. But today.” The poem highlights the reversal of roles as the speaker acknowledges: “It is my father who keeps stumbling / Behind me.”

In Eden Rock, the speaker’s lingering longing for their parents suggests they remain emotionally tied to the past.The poem concludes with a single, isolated line, visually emphasizing the speaker’s return to reality.Their final words convey a sense of unexpected emotion at the depth of their feelings about the separation: “I had not thought that it would be like this.”