Blackberry Picking

In the poem Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney, the author tells his readers about his blackberry picking experience. However on a deeper understanding, he explains that nothing lasts forever no matter how hard you try to preserve it through the use of imagery, rhyme and diction. “Late August, given heavy rain and sun/For a full week, the blackberries would ripen,” the speaker states this as a way to set the mood and also tells the reader that it’s the season and the time for blackberries to be ripened. Next, he introduces a metaphor: “a glossy purple clot,” comparing the blackberry to a blood clot to indicate the ripeness and juiciness of the berry. The line after this contrasts the message in the previous line. These two rhyming lines, “clot” and “knot” both have similar meaning, but in context, it contradicts itself. The speaker proceeds to with his metaphor by attributing human characteristics to the blackberry such as “flesh,” “tongue,” and lust. The line “summer’s blood was in it” forms a three way comparison between summer, human and blackberries which relate back to the deeper understanding of his appreciation of what he has found.

The process is a struggle and pain. He uses word choices such as: “scratched,” “trekked,” and “hands were peppered with thorn pricks” to create an image of the strenuous action of preserving these berries. At the end of the first stanza he alludes to Charles Perrault's Bluebeard. A man who murders his wives when they refuse to adhere to his simple command which is to leave the locked door shut. This door held the bodies of his previous wives who disobeys his command. This allusion strengthens the imagery and create a more dramatic effect of the difficulty of trying to preserve the blackberries since he has been pricked multiple times from the berry bush and his bloody hands are similar to the murderous hands of