Analysis Of Blackberry Eating By Galway Kinnell

In Galway Kinnell’s “Blackberry Eating,” the author utilizes several literary devices that enhance the symbolic meaning behind the poem. Kinnell uses repeated alliterations throughout the poem through several constant uses of soft sounds that are interrupted quickly by heard sounds to produce pathos for the readers. The slow rhythm of the poem creates a sense within the readers of savoring the blackberries of the poem. The whole poem is an extended metaphor that represents the relationship of tangible blackberries and intangible words. Through sensory imagery, including sight, touch and taste; the author creates a parallel to both the reader’s senses and the word that are contained within the poem. This style that the author has created formulates

The poem relies on the idea of personal experience from the poet, which classifies this poem as a type of lyric poetry. The author starts off the poem with a mood of comfort and love when he reminisces on the topic of autumn, specifically “late September.” Sensory imagery is revealed in the first few lines of the poem when the author says, “among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries/to eat blackberries for breakfast.” Along with the imagery, the readers could notice the blending of the wilderness and civilization through the nature of humankind’s necessities when the poet says the “blackberries for breakfast.” Also, in this same line, the author reveals the usage of alliteration with “love, late; black, blackberries; etc. The poem can also be seen as a simile between the comparison of blackberries and words. The words have many letters and contain one syllable compared to the hyperbolic adjectives that are used to emphasize the sensation of the blackberries. The words create a heightening in the meaning as well as relations to the “strengths” and “squinched” of the words among the few vowels of the