Blackberry Picking- Seamus Heaney Analysis

Childhood is portrayed as a time of safety that is often looked back upon with nostalgia from an adult perspective. Monosyllabic words are used to show the simplicity of childhood life, for example in the line “the thing I could not grasp or name”. The ‘spring violets’ are ‘in their loamy bed’ and are no longer frail and melancholy, and the memory takes place on a ‘hot afternoon’ in contrast to the ‘cold dusk’ that represents the present. Childhood is represented as a joyful, vivacious time in one’s life, and the value of a stable family life is conveyed. The unexpected integration of Australian vernacular in the line ‘it will soon be night, you goose’, adds a sense of freedom and relaxation to the otherwise formal discourse and more rigid structure of the poem, once again reflects the simplicity and innocence that is associated with childhood. The use of

In Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Blackberries,” a youthful speaker seems to be living past the boundaries of city life and exhibits qualities of rural living. The poem tells of the speaker’s adventure of picking blackberries from a thicket and encountering the duality of urban society. Readers of “Blackberries” might at first be puzzled by the speaker’s youthful memory of picking berries, but a closer analysis of the poem allows readers to recognize that the speaker’s internal conflict originates from strict societal boundaries and the loss of his childhood innocence.

Two of the poems written by Seamus Heaney, “Digging” and “Blackberry Picking”, contain recurring themes while both discussing entirely different scenes. The first poem, “Digging”, talks about Heaney’s memories of hearing his father digging in the potato garden outside the house. The second poem, “Blackberry-Picking”, carries a similar solemn tone, while describing another memory of Heaney’s of his experience with picking blackberries. These poems by Heaney share similar themes of reflection of his past experiences in which he dissects important life lessons from everyday events such as the passage of time and the uncertainty of life.

This poem brought me back to my home town and the wonders and beauty that it brings around winter time, and made me nostalgic with memories of past winters with my family and slightly saddened for those who have never seen the magical ability snow has. This poem reminded me that there are people who live in states where their change in seasons is not as noticeable, as the ones that I grew up with and have come to miss. Similar to many of the romantics, natures true beauty can transform the mundane into a work of art that would never have existed

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

The poem describes the weather and its effect on cotton flower by pointing out the dying branches and vanishing cotton. The image of insufficiency, struggle and death parallel the oppression of African American race. The beginning of the poem illustrates the struggle and suffering of the cotton flower; which represent the misery of African Americans and also gives an idea that there is no hope for them. But at the end the speaker says “brown eyes that loves without a trace of fear/ Beauty so sudden for that time of year” (lines 13-14). This shows the rise of the African American race, and their fight against racism. The author used mood, tone and

The poem "Blackberries" by Yusef Komunyakaa, tells the story of a carefree young boy who enjoys spending his past time picking blackberries in the forest, until he is confronted with the reality of his obvious lack. Yusef Komunyakaa effectively uses symbolism and figurative language to demonstrate man's conflict with society and himself.

This makes blackberry picking appear to be a good thing, but the author starts to reveal that darker side of this summer task. The setting of this poem is in late August which is also the end of the summer. By using “summer” with positive connotation in the lines before and after but then having it be almost over Heaney sets up even more contrast of being youthful and joyful, and of adulthood and lessened buoyancy. The attitude continues to grow pessimistic with. This line leads into the second stanza with an allusion to a man who killed most of his wives and bathed in their

The first time this theme is revealed in the poem “Blackberry-Picking” is while the author describes the first blackberry ripens. He recalls, “You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet. ”(Source A.) The blackberries in this poem represent ones childhood. He compares to the innocence of being a child to eating blackberries for the first time after they ripen.

His youth was an important time in his life and a common topic of his many poems. He reflects on how he would hear his father working in the fields, framing the potatoes with pride of his culture in the popular poem “Digging”. “He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep/ To scatter new potatoes that we picked/ Loving their cool hardness in our hands” (Heaney 12-14). His father was a strict man, but he was also a very influential aspect in Heaney’s life and taught him what is meant to be a hardworking man. Even after he has grown in age and his father has past he still has not lost hope and given up. Later in his life, he began teaching at a university. It was here that he developed a love for writing. He continued to write for the IRA, Irish Republican Army, during the war. His poems during this time are considered to be some of his greatest works. He continued to write until the end of his life, when he died in 2013 in his home country Ireland.

As the speaker casually calls their parents, a setting of calm expectations is established. While greeting the speaker, the mother’s decision to “run out and get” (1) the father highlights the lack of urgency that is present. The mother is calm and fetches the father in an expected and relaxed fashion, further establishing the calm expectations of the ongoing call. The mother additionally states that “the weather here’s so good” (2). Heaney’s use of the word “good” reflects the setting of the mother and father’s home; the atmosphere of where they live is pleasant and unperturbed. The “weather” serves as a projection of the father’s own state, implying that the father is in good health and that death is not yet looming over him. The last spoken words in the poem reveal that the father was conducting “a bit of weeding” (3). The word “weeding” highlights the capability of the

This is paradoxically established when the author says: “all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot” (23). The hopes of sweet and lovely blackberries are destroyed by the inevitable decay of what was sweet and satisfying in the berries. This grim picture of the destruction of the things we cherish enough to search for even when “wet grass bleached our boots” (10), displays a depressing picture of the world around us. Although human possessions, in this case the berries, do not live forever, the hope that goodness will carry on is exhibited in the childish hopes that the berries will stay fresh despite the knowledge that the berries themselves will

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.

The second and fourth line in each stanza have end rhymes, such as “door” (l.10) and “more” (l.12), “run” (l.14) and “sun” (l.16). The regular pattern of the end rhymes adds on “order” in the poem, and forms a contrast with the first and third line in the stanza. The “order” of rhymes can represent the order of nature; the “disorder” of other lines can represent the excitement after drinking alcohol and the speaker’s copious love for nature. Moreover, the alliteration in the poems adds singsong quality: “Debauchee... Dew” (l.6), “seraph... swing... snowy... saints” (l.12-13). And through her word choice of informal words such as “Debauchee” (1.6) and “Tippler” (l.15), we can feel a light and bright tone in the poem. This tone connects to the real subject of the poem – nature—because summer days are delightful and

All poetry aims to communicate an experience; a body of memory, sensation, or wisdom that contributes significant meaning to the life of a poet and of all human beings. It is the mystery of literature that one may speak of a single, physical incident, yet draw deep universal conclusions from it. Like the Christian dogma of the Word made Flesh, the Christ both fully mortal and fully divine, the best of poetry dwells paradoxically in the realms of both literal and figurative. Seamus Heaney's poem, Blackberry-Picking, exhibits a precise, elegant poetic technique that permits such a simultaneous existence. Through his use of overt religious allusions, intense, metaphorical imagery, and sharply contrasting symbols, Heaney reveals a young protagonist's journey from childhood to adulthood, or in essence, immaturity to maturity, with a focus on the speaker’s reconciliation with an inconvenient yet inevitable truth - in essence, creating a Bildungsroman.