Blackberry+Picking

 In this poem Seamus Heaney paints a vivid, sensuous description of his childhood memory of picking blackberries. //Blackberry Picking// is structured into two parts, the first longer, describing the race to gather the blackberries, and then he describes their consumption, the arrival of joy and the almost convulsive mad rush to capture every drop of it. The second section is about half that length and it focusses on the ruin of the remainder. of the berries. The words are densely packed, enriched with verbs and adjectives and phrases, to establish the tone. It is deliberately rich. Some of the words and phrases used which describe the juiciness of the blackberries are, “glossy purple clot”, “summers blood was in it”, “flesh was sweet” and “the red ones inked up,” all telling of the freshness and ripeness of the blackberries with no trace of imperfections. The poem fills the mouth as the blackberries do. It is laden with that strange fruit, its sweet clammy experience ready to be tasted and stored. Similar sounding words such as "milk-cans, pea-tins, jam pots", "hayfields, cornfields", "trekked and picked" creates a resonant cadence. The poem is hypnotic in its unrelenting linguistic intensity, Rhymes and metaphors like “Grass bleached boots”, “Hands peppered with thorns” etc. The poet is careful to balance the copiously sonorous phrases with words that more than hint at a darker side to the bounty of blackberries (E.g.: Rat-grey fungus, stinking, rot)

There are three primary images in //Blackberry-Picking//. They are the child blackberry-pickers, carrying "milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots", the "fur" or the villain that steals their treasure, and the blackberries themselves.

The children are an image of unrestrained desire. They succumb easily to the "lust for picking", savouring the sweet taste and hoarding the unconsumed berries. They are controlled by their craving. They represent humanity in the poem, in their envy of that which is "gutting on their cache", and their sense of injustice - "it isn't fair" that what they have so greatly desired and gained is snatched from them by the swift processes of time.

The "fungus" or “fur” is the explanation called by the speaker for the destruction of their "cache". It aids in the destruction of their fruit, and is the object of their hatred and derision. He ominously describes "a rat-grey fungus" creeping over a fresh cache of fruit. However, "once off the bush... the sweet flesh would turn sour" by its nature, portending corruption and decay. The pure enjoyment of the eating is subsumed by greed for more until most are lost to the processes of time, when they should have been left on the bush. The pain involved in getting them is multiplied when they are consumed by an outside force, the "fur". The speaker knows this, although he does not acknowledge it to the end of the poem.

Blackberries themselves are part of childhood, a yearly summer ritual, an object of enjoyment, of "trekking and picking" throughout the countryside. Next, the blackberries are intensely desirable, they are "glossy purple", they have "sweet flesh", and they "tinkle" pleasantly when thrown into a container. It is their richness that is so desirable; their contents carry "summer's blood”. They are also ephemeral, which is part of their desirability. Every year the speaker challenges the laws of nature and "hopes they will keep". Even as the picking days are continuing the berries grow from "green" to "red" and finally "ink... up" to "big dark blobs".

The "lust" for blackberries is a blood lust. Their "flesh is sweet", like "blood". The children are willing to suffer a great deal of pain to satisfy "that hunger". Then Heaney's tone becomes decidedly ominous - the blackberries are "like a plate of eyes", their palms are stained with the juice, as "Bluebeard's" were stained with blood.

The final part of the poem is a desolate relation of the half-innocent greed of the blackberry-pickers, and their horror and jealousy at their prize's ruin. It continues in the petulant tone of an upset child - "It wasn't fair/That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot" and concludes in a more distant, grave, accepting tone, revealing that even the child knew the berries would not "keep".

This is indeed a wonderful poem that acts as restorative tonic to our sins and cravings in life and reminds us how things never live up to our expectation and leave a stain as well in their destiny of decay. [|Blackberry Bold 9790 Deals]