Both Follower and Mid-Term Break are poems that display Heaney’s skill as a poet who can
represent the emotional complexity of family relationships in a truly honest but simply manner. He
does not over- express and carefully selects words to create a sensory experience for the reader. In
contrast, the poem Follower, captures the highly personal relationship that Heaney had with his father
and Mid-Term Break provides a snapshot of Heaney in a private moment with other members of his
family. One poem is preoccupied with the cycle of life and the effects of aging, the other focused on
the impact of a death in the family.
In Follower, Heaney clearly admires his father and uses nautical metaphors to emphasize the
power and strength of the man. The simile ‘his shoulders like a full sail strung between the shafts and
the furrow’ reflects the awe in which the young Heaney viewed his father. The two word sentence ‘an
expert’ emphasizes how highly skilled Heaney believes his father to be and he uses active verbs such
as ‘clicking’, ‘dipping and rising’ and ‘mapping’ to create the ploughing experience for the reader. This
is accentuated by the poet’s use of onomatopoeia (clicking) and alliteration of words (fit the bright
pointed sock) to create the metallic sounds of horses and a plough being manipulated by an
experienced farmer. Heaney juxtaposes his depiction of his father against the reflection of his own
inadequacies as a ‘nuisance’ who was always ‘tripping, falling, yapping always’. These highly
descriptive words, combine with the idea that Heaney was always in his father’s ‘broad shadow’ and
in some sad way not quite the man that his father was. The structure of the poem further underlines
the imperfect recollection of Heaney’s childhood experience, as the four line stanzas contain irregular
iambic pentameter that interrupt the stead rhythm of the lines; indicating that the expected rhythm of
this reflective experience, is slightly out of sync – like the connection between father and son. In this
poem, Heaney is an adult, reflecting back on his childhood but the poem eventually shifts to the
present, revealing a change. The change in tense, from past to present, exposes a different, reversed
relationship between father and son, where the father is now ‘stumbling behind me’ – emphasizing
the effects of aging and how it results in the demise and devaluation of a human being. The poet
employs a harsh, almost selfish tone to draw the reader’s attention to this unfortunate fact of life.
Mid-Term Break reflects a more controlled use of language and reflects a somber and grim
tone, as the subject matter focuses around one of the worst moments the poet experienced, the
death of his four year-old younger brother. Written from the perspective of a child, the first stanza
focuses on Heaney waiting to be picked up and is written to create a sense of boredom. The line
‘counting bells knelling classes’ creates cacophony, that emphasizes the unpleasantness of the
waiting, and the ‘knelling’, like a funereal church bell foreshadows what he will soon encounter death. In comparison to the depiction of Heaney’s father in Follower, his father is seen ‘crying’ which
is clearly a shock to the poet. The idiom ‘taken funerals in his stride’ amplifies how confronting the
poet finds his loved ones’ reactions. The second idiom ‘sorry for my trouble’ again underplays the
subjects matter and conveys the poet’s immature reaction and lack of comprehension about how
adult’s behave at times like these. Juxtaposition is used in this poem as well, as ‘the baby cooed and
laughed’ in strong contrast to the adults ‘whispers’ and ‘tearless sighs’ that provide the hushed
sounds and quiet grief that are infused through the poem. Heaney’s lack of emotion and detached
observation continues in the fifth stanza, when the corpse arrives and the clinical words ‘stanched
and bandaged by nurses’ are used to describe his brother’s body. The sixth stanza marks a change
in language, with a combination of symbolism and imagery, as ‘snowdrops’ ‘and candles soothed the
bedside’, are used to convey the innocence of the deceased and the beauty of the poet’s memory of
his brother. The imagery of ‘paler now’ ties in with the white symbolism, which strongly contrasts to
the ‘poppy bruise on his left temple’, the red symbolism of blood, death and men prematurely losing
their lives in war. Again Heaney uses a simile ‘as in his cot’ to make a point about the tragic nature of
a child lying in a four foot box. Repetition and the deliberate isolation of one line, a nine word stanza
from the previous pattern of three line stanzas, is also used to drive the shocking idea into the psyche
of the reader.
Adult reflection of significant or definitive childhood memories is another link that can be made
between the two poems. Heaney looks back on his past in an attempt to understand those around
him and how they shaped the man he became. There is also an element of growing up and the
realizations or understandings that come with that maturation in both poems. In Follower Heaney as a
child wants to grow up to be a farmer just like his ‘expert’ father. In Mid-Term Break growing up
means that he must deal with tragedy and death. Both poems reflect rustic country life, community
and family.