Compare the poetic methods used by Heaney in sonnets 1 and 3 of "Clearances."

Both poems deal with Heaney's mother who is
deceased.

Sonnet one and three are very different pieces, and though
both are set in the past, the first deals with the distant past and how the author is tied to his
mother's family history through the years, though he was not directly a part of that
history.

The second of the sonnets, number three, deals with the
recent past by comparison, of time he spent with his mother, creating an exclusive memory with
her while the rest of the family was at mass.

The poetic methods
(devices) that appear to be used in the first sonnet are hyperbole and an
extended metaphor.

Hyperbole refers to
exaggeration; the poet seems to be saying that a rock thrown a hundred years ago continues toward
its target—now the poet, though it was originally aimed at his
great-grandmother. (The sense is that something started years ago still is reverberating into the
future.)

An extended metaphor is simply a comparison that goes
beyond a simple statement to continue through a passage or "extended" piece of
writing.

The passage here describes the casting of a rock (cobble)
which startles a horse that takes off in a riotous race carrying his great-grandmother's trap (a
small carriage); the horse and all go flying through a town at a "panicked" gallop down a
hillside (brae) through a "gauntlet" of insults (a crowd of disapproving neighbors—perhaps near
the church—?). The cause seems to be that the woman changed her religion ("The Convert." "The
Exogamous Bride") and is attempting to go to mass for the first
time.

The comparison is of the fervor caused by something his
ancestress did in her lifetime that moved along like a horse gone
wild.

The race conveys the sense that the mad dash brought on by a
careless or angry hand throwing a stone catapults the woman through the difficult decisions she
has made (not allowing an easy transition on her part), and that decision is still affecting the
poet so many years later. However, as if pulling the reins on the runaway horse, the poet slows
the motion of the poem with the pivotal word "anyhow." It is as if the speaker says, "This has
gone on long enough, and it stops here."

What has been left to the
poet, he notes, after the death of his mother is not what one might expect: silver or Victorian
lace, but the need to exonerate those who have been judged all this time in a "race" that began
many years ago based on a preference his great-grandmother exercised to worship as she saw
fit.

Sonnet three is a little more straightforward. In the first
eight lines we see a simile describing the potatoes peeled:

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...let fall one by one

Like
solder weeping off the soldering
iron:

Next is a metaphor describing
the peeled potatoes sitting in a bucket of clean water:

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Cold comforts set between us, things to share / Gleaming
in a bucket of clean
water

Onomatopoeia is used
with little pleasant
splashes.

There is a pivotal
shift found at the beginning of the ninth line, where the scene changes in the writer's memory,
to fast forward to his dying mother's bedside.

A metaphor (and
idiom) is used with:

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"Went hammer and tongs at the
prayers for the dying,"

indicating
that the priest is working energetically administering the late
rites.

In line thirteen, beautiful imagery is used in remembering
how they peeled the potatoes together "...our fluent dipping
knives."

Also, in this last section (known as the
"sestet"), we hear end rhyme used twice, where it has not been used before, perhaps providing an
auditory focus for the listener to tie the "before" memory with the "last" memory:
"dying...crying," and "knives...lives."

The
pace of the first sonnet is maddening, while the rhythms of the third sonnet are warm, inviting
and endearing.