Blackberry Picking Figurative Language

Heaney continues to do this by glorifying the frogspawn, using alliteration “jam pots of the jellied specks”. This creates a soft and gentle rhythm for the reader, portraying Heaney’s fascination with nature a child.

The figurative language in “Fight” helps exaggerate Blossom’s feelings about the opposites between her and her lover. She uses imagery to explain how she

Galway Kinnell speaks about the act of eating delicious blackberries in his poem “Blackberry Eating.” The author starts out his poem with a narrative on his tangible experiences when eating the fruit, but the poem later transitions into the topic of writing words. The topic of eating blackberries serves as an analogy for language and how perplexing yet marvelous it truly can be. This speaks to how poetry can be used as a medium to discuss the complexities existing in language itself and how these complexities can show how poetry encapsulates this artistic literary form. “Blackberry Eating” uses alliteration, repetition and specific word choice to convey the image of physically eating a blackberry while alluding to the tactile process of

fair”, you can tell this is the voice of a child. There is also a

The author uses figurative language when he says, “. . . made bits of paper dance between the parked cars.”. This helps the reader understand that the mood of the setting is gloomy. In the story the quote, “His father’s words, like distant thunder that now echoed through the streets of Harlem” helps the reader better understand the characters. This quote helps the reader infer that the narrator's dad is a big, strict, loud, and his words are repeated in the narrator’s mind. Finally, the author uses figurative language when he says, “The voice was high and brittle, like twigs being broken”. This quote helps describe Lemon Brown by comparing his voice to twigs being broken. This makes Lemon Brown appear to be old and feeble. By using figurative language Walter Dean Myers helped establish the mood and

Written in 1980, Galway Kinnell's Blackberry Eating is a poem which creates a strong metaphoric relationship between the tangible objects of blackberries, and the intangible objects of words. The speaker of the poem feels a strong attraction to the sensory characteristics (the touch, taste, and look) of blackberries. The attraction he feels at the beginning of the poem exclusively for blackberries is paralleled in the end by his appetite and attraction to words. The rush the speaker gets out of blackberry eating is paralleled to the enjoyment he finds in thinking about certain words; words which call up the same sensory images the blackberries embody.

Carol Anne Duffy presents love and romance in a unique way that differentiates valentine from any other love poem. Throughout this poem carol expresses love though the original metaphor of an onion. This essay analyses how she does this so effectively and how she presents a range of ideas about love and romance.

Once the reader can passes up the surface meaning of the poem Blackberry-Picking, by Seamus Heaney, past the emotional switch from sheer joy to utter disappointment, past the childhood memories, the underlying meaning can be quite disturbing. Hidden deep within the happy-go-lucky rifts of childhood is a disturbing tale of greed and murder. Seamus Heaney, through clever diction, ghastly imagery, misguided metaphors and abruptly changing forms, ingeniously tells the tale that is understood and rarely spoken aloud.

is the idea of the bone as stone, with the mind as a catapult. This

‘Death of a Naturalist”. ‘Blackberry Picking’ contains symbolism of ripening and rotting of blackberry which could be Heaney’s way of suggesting youth and death, “glossy purple clot” could be viewed as ‘youth’ as it suggests growth and seems almost seductive and “rat-grey fungus” suggests decay, which is what happens after a person dies and their body is corrupted by soil and consumed by foul creatures. ‘Blackberry Picking’ also consists of similes “our palms as sticky as Bluebeard’s” which could be a euphemism for the guilt of greediness for the berries, the speaker’s hands are sticky like Bluebeard'. In the case of the poem, the boys' hands are sticky with the juice of the berries, whereas Bluebeard's hands could presumably be sticky with the blood of his many wives. Growing up is shown as the feelings of guilt rises in the reader, children are unlikely to feel guilt because they do not have the advanced power of reasoning like adults do, so the realisation of the greed in the reader is significant as it shows signs of maturity. There are also elements of sexual awakening “lust for picking” shows connection with the sensual desires, this suggests puberty and discovery of reproduction, elements of longing,

Poetry is a way to express emotions through writing, as I was reading the four poems, one of them stood out to me almost instantly. The emotions I got while reading Seamus Heaney’s poem "Blackberry-Picking" made me feel extremely nostalgic. It instantly brought back memories I hadn’t thought about in years! I was amazed, as I was reading the poem I could instantly relate to the narrator.

In his first collection The Death of a Naturalist (1966), the poem ‘‘Digging’’ is intentionally placed first in the volume. It acts as a precursor for the rest of the volume, and subsequent work, which never expresses a direct opinion on a topic, but attempts to examine and delve deeper into it. ‘‘Digging’’ reads like a mission statement for Heaney’s future poetry, as in the final stanza, he understands the identity of the man, and poet, he strives to be. Although there is no explicit mention of Irish nationalism or republicanism, Heaney infers his sense of tradition and history in the use of a chiasma – his pen is

Seamus Heaney was the author of many different poems that touched on political concerns and “the ethical commitments of the poet in a world of enduring conflicts” (Norton Anthology 2488). One of his several works that deals with this is titled “Digging.” At first glance readers may not realize the significance of this poem or how to interpret its meaning. When analyzing it further one can realize it shares similar themes and meanings as several of Heaney’s other poetry as well as a shared style, however the tone comes off slightly different than the majority of his work. The way these poetic elements are combined makes for an easily read, yet boldly thoughtful poem. Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” shares the common meaning of a commitment to writing, a narrative style that is predominately free verse, and a tone of acceptance and guilt.

In Heaney’s, ‘Blackberry picking,’ he sets the poem within two uneven stanzas, depicting the romantic memories of nature that humans often feel, then contrasting it with the result of their greed and disappointment. The poem’s fast flowing rhyming couplets add a softness and sweetness to the poem, allowing taste connotations of the blackberries when they at at their ripest. In addition, it almost becomes a musical lit, without any rigidity to hold back Heaney’s emotions.

Heaney uses the structure in ‘Blackberry Picking’ to show the romantic human nature. The structure is two uneven stanzas with half rhyming couplets which does not imposing too much harshness, which reflects the romanticised view of human nature.