Blackberry Picking Essay -- Poems Poetry Berries Essays

Blackberry PickingBlackberry picking is almost greed, growing up, how we struggle in lifeand how delectation can be taken a office from us very quickly. Heaneywrites retrospectively, about the times he as a child would goblackberry-picking every year, as a metaphor for these experiences.The first 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 panoptic 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 hard 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 then continues to write about the frenzyof picking them - lust for picking.Heaney presents the tasting of the berries as a sensual process, andalso uses words akin flesh, and thickened wine to be the berriessound so desira ble. Alsolust, to describe the childrensunrestrained desire and appetite for them. Heaney uses a lot of figurative language in this poem. Personification and a series of metaphors and similies are used flesh was sweet like thickened wine, the berry is personified andthere 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 pick out up their milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots until they arefully filled up with blackberries until the tinkling bottom hasbeen covered. 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,and that good things wo nt utmost, while relating it back to a childhoodevent of his past. It is also about growing up, and ageing, as we getthe contrast of the adults and childrens view 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 liked this poem isbecause I like the way Heaney uses past events of his life to expresscertain ideas about life.