Blackberry Picking Essay -- Poems Poetry Berries Essays

Blackberry PickingBlackberry picking is nigh greed, growing up, how we struggle in lifeand how pleasure can be taken a air from us very quickly. Heaneywrites retrospectively, about the times he as a child would goblackberry-picking every year, as a fable for these experiences.The original stanza of the poem is mostly quite positive andenthusiastic. The first part of the stanza describes the the ripeningof the berries, given heavy rain and sun for a wide week, theblackberries would ripen. He also gives us an image of the berries. Heaney uses the metaphor a glossy purple clot for the ripe berries,and the similie unattackable as a knot for the unripe berries. When you sayhard as a knot, the sound is quite short, indicating that theberries are not yet ripe. It indeed continues to write about the frenzyof picking them - inclination for picking.Heaney presents the predilection of the berries as a sensual process, andalso uses words like mush, and thickened wine to make the berrie ssound so desirable. Alsolust, to describe the childrensunrestrained desire and appetite for them. Heaney uses a lot of tropical language in this poem. Personification and a series of metaphors and similies are employ flesh was new like thickened wine, the berry is personified and in that location is use of a similie, the metaphor summers blood, referring tothe hard work and nourishment that nature has put into it, and thensuddenly it is taken away by the children.It is the peoples hunger and lustfor the berries that sends themout to fill up their milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots until they arefully filled up with blackberries until the tinkling bottom hasbeen cover. Onomatopoeia is used - tinkling... ...ow long and painful the process ofpicking the blackberries are, how they got their hands full of thornpricks. Then after a short while, the berries start to rot, and thesweet flesh of the berries would turn sour.Heaney writes this poem to reveal that life is about disappointment,a nd that estimable things wont last, while relating it back to a childhood concomitant of his past. It is also about growing up, and ageing, as we getthe contrast of the adults and childrens visit in the last stanza.I found this poem very enjoyable and interesting to study, becausewhen I was reading the poem, it almost felt like I could taste theblackberries. I like his use of figurative language, especially theway he described the berries. Another reason why I wish this poem isbecause I like the way Heaney uses past events of his life to stockpilecertain ideas about life.