Blackberry Picking
“Blackberry Picking” is a realistic and effective poem by the brilliant Seamus Heaney. The poem is about a boy’s experience of picking blackberries that are in season, but the boy’s fun dies when he realises the berries soon start to rot. I will be looking at how Heaney brought this childhood experience to life for me.
Heaney first brings the poem to life in the first two lines.
“Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week the berries would ripen.”
“For a full week” is something most likely something a child would say because for an adult a week seems to fly in. This is very effective to say in the poem because it is so realistic.
In the next few lines Heaney then changes the mood from positive to negative. He describes the first berry to ripen with a gory image.
“At first, just one, a glossy purple clot.”
“Glossy” suggests how shiny and fresh the berry is but then when Heaney says clot that makes you think of blood and not something you would like to eat. This is continued with the phrase
“Summer’s blood was in it.”
This continues the unpleasant image of the berry being full of blood which is strange and horrible. Another phrase that shows the other berries ripening is
“Then the red ones inked up.”
This shows how you could see the berries almost as if they are being injected with colour. The rich colours swooshing about in the berries until the berries are full up and almost bursting with juice and colour.
“Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins and jam pots.”
This phrase lists everything that the children will use to get the berries. The phrase also shows that the children will use anything just as long as they get them berries. This effect of lists and the children’s determination on getting these berries is continued by the phrase
“Round hayfields, Cornfields and Potato Drills.”
This phrase lists all the different places that the children are willing to go to get the delicious and juicy berries and the effort they are willing to put into the adventure.
The poet uses very vivid metaphors and similes later on in the poem.
“big dark blobs burned like a plate of eyes.”
This simile is very lifelike and is very unpleasant as we can imagine the big berries starring at the children like eyes. Heaney also describes the children as murderers in the phrase
“Our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.”
This simile is also very effective because it shows the children’s imagination and how they think that they are murderers with the juices from the berries on their hands.
Near the end of the poem, Heaney uses effective imagery to describe how the children are hiding and treasuring the berries.
“We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.”
This shows us that the children are keeping the berries to themselves and watching over them like an animal protecting its young. But then the children’s excitement soon dies when the berries begin to rot.
“A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.”
The metaphor used describes the “rat-grey fungus” as vermin rather than mother nature taking its course when things mould.
In this paragraph, Heaney uses a sense of disappointment in the phrase
“The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.”
These contrasting words “sweet and sour” shows sweet as the children’s happiness and the sour as the children’s disappointment when the berries have gone off. Heaney ends the poem with a rhyming couplet.
“That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot / Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.”
This is a very childlike rhyme, which is very evocative and full of different emotion. It shows the true nature of childhood and how dreams don’t always last long, no matter how hard or how much we try and want them to, we don’t have a choice. It also shows that there is always disappointment in life which we need to accept and deal with. Heaney shows the disappointment through the rhyming couplet.
Heaney brought this poem to life for me through word choice, contrast and metaphors. I saw this adventure through the boy’s eyes and how excited he was at the start of the adventure. I enjoyed this rollercoaster ride of Blackberry Picking and how it gets you involved in the poem.