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What’s Up With the Title?

The title really makes us want to dive into the poem to discover who is following whom, and who is the leader. Maybe it could be a mysterious poem (think crime show stalker), or maybe it could be a poem about devotion—romantic devotion, religious devotion—our imaginations are going wild even before we've hit the first line.

Once we dive into the poem, we discover the title is working on a bunch of different levels. Most of the poem is dedicated to describing how the son literally follows his dad around the field, but we also see how the son figuratively wants to follow in his father's footsteps (to be a strong and skilled farmer like him). By the end of the poem, Heaney turns things around completely. Now the father is following the son. The idea of following is persistent in this poem, but it doesn't always follow the same direction. Here's hoping we can keep up.