Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
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“Blackberry-Picking,” the author uses vivid details and diction to explain the deeper meaning with a simple situation of picking berries. The cycle of life keeps changing, he picks berries knowing each will rot yet he still goes picking year after year after year even ending up with the same conclusion yet continues to pick them, he has hope that the berries would last which they don't. I believe this is a metaphor for life if you keep doing the same thing over and over you will get the same results in the last sentence, “sweet flesh is turning sour” this is conclusively refers to growing up and growing old happens to everyone.
ReplyDeleteIn this poem i feel the author is reflecting back on his childhood when he would be in the field gathering theses berries. I do agree with Sophia that the author is talking about the cycle of life. The poet uses the blood and words that refer to blood to symbolise for youth and life, for instance when he describes the ripened berries they are a "purple clot". The berries were described as summer blood. the uses of blood is a way to connect berries to humans so his ultimate message of the cycle of life could be properly conveyed.
ReplyDeleteThe author tells a story of how a group of people are in a farm searching for berries. They collect from ripped good berries to almost beforehand fruit. This image created him the poem shows that they do this as a tradition and always has been done. The author might refer that some traditions might be broken because of something like an obstacle that prevents them from continuing. When the narrator found that “it was fair” was that the character worked to make a person happy. The tradition is broke as the foreshadowing of the rat carcass shows how she won’t have the same tradition the same way.
ReplyDeleteHeaney uses imagery to show his enjoyment to see that not everything is what it seems. He uses this experience to portray his childhood memories and how these moments pass through time so eventually, disappointment will come along. Around the second stanza, the pleasure to pick berries started to fade away. He would hope that berries would last but they won't.
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