Follower is a poem by Seamus Heaney released in his 1966 collection Death of a Naturalist. The poem is about how he admired and followed his father.
In this poem, Heaney reflects and looks back almost nostalgically at Irish farming through a description of his father's ploughing expertise. He vividly describes his memories of his father's abilities and explains to his readers his total, uncompromising admiration for his father as the young boy he used to be. The rhyming scheme is as skillful as the action it describes and a further note on structure would be the development from admiration to irritation: "Behind me and won't go away". This is a cycle which can be related to all over the world in many different situations. Heaney had a stroke in 1990 but recovered, he did not write about this event.
This poem was included in the GCSE AQA Anthology.