Irving Layton’s “Berry Picking” and Robert Lowell’s “Water” both explore the natural world’s connection to human lives and relationships. Both authors use literary devices such as imagery, diction, rhyme, and metaphor to convey the messages of their poems. Collectively, the poems portray the natural world as being powerful, as well as being controlling of human lives and relationships.
The poem “Berry Picking” offers a message that the natural world has the power to corrupt human relationships. Layton first presents this message by using metaphor. A metaphor is “A figure of speech in which a comparison is made or identity is asserted between two unrelated things” (p.1495). In his poem, Layton uses metaphor to associate the berries, a representative
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The nature of the wife’s interaction with the berries solidifies this metaphor. She puts them “in her mouth” (13), and “Bends or straightens” (5) repeatedly to each bush, while they “taste good to her” (15). These actions aid in demonstrating the flirtation and sexual imagery that exists between the wife and the berries. Moreover, the jealousy the speaker has towards the berries, as well as the wife’s love for the berries over him, further strengthens this metaphor of another man with the speaker’s wife. Another way Layton shows the negative effects of the natural world on the relationship is by using diction, the “word choice” (p.1488) in the poem, to link and distance specific individuals or objects in the poem. The speaker describes the berries as lying “easily” (17), which connects them to the wife’s “easy soul” (21). Similarly, he describes the wife as having “quiet hands” (7), which connects her with the silent berries and the “quiet summer” (7). Additionally, the natural berries are “unoffending” (18), which presents a contrast between them and the husband, who is “vex[ing]” (9), “perplex[ing]” (9) and “barbarous” (16). Finally, Layton utilizes the rhyme scheme of the poem to mirror
The use of phrases like ‘notice how the oldest girl…’ gives a feeling that the narrator is pointing out to the responder the family members, as if the narrator and the responder are both present at the scene when the family’s moving at the time. The blackberries were used as an indicator of time, showing us how long the family has stayed in this place for, and the changes of the blackberries from when they had first arrived to when they were leaving also used as a symbol to create mood of sadness and the lost of hope. We know from several lines of the poem that the family only stayed at the house that they’ll soon be leaving for a very short while. From the lines: ‘and she’ll go out to the vegetable patch and pick up all the green tomatoes from the vines,’ – The green tomatoes tell us that the tomato plant has not been planted long, not long enough to produce ripe fruits by the time they’re going to leave. ‘
observation, a beautifully detailed manner of writing, a love for the beauty of nature, and an interest in how people interact with the natural world. Like Leopold, Bishop examines human interactions with nature on both the personal and the ecological level. On the individual level, a hunter’s contact with the animal he or she is hunting changes his or her attitude toward nature in both Bishop’s poem “The Fish” and Leopold’s essay “Thinking Like a Mountain.” On the larger level, both Bishop in her poem “The Mountain” and Leopold throughout the Sand County Almanac envision the role of human beings in relation to the rest of the natural world as one of exploration and interpretation through science and art.
In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, the narrator attempts to understand the relationship between humans and nature and finds herself concluding that they are intertwined due to humans’ underlying need to take away from nature, whether through the act of poetic imagination or through the exploitation and contamination of nature. Bishop’s view of nature changes from one where it is an unknown, mysterious, and fearful presence that is antagonistic, to one that characterizes nature as being resilient when faced against harm and often victimized by people. Mary Oliver’s poem also titled “The Fish” offers a response to Bishop’s idea that people are harming nature, by providing another reason as to why people are harming nature, which is due to how people are unable to view nature as something that exists and goes beyond the purpose of serving human needs and offers a different interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. Oliver believes that nature serves as subsidence for humans, both physically and spiritually. Unlike Bishop who finds peace through understanding her role in nature’s plight and acceptance at the merging between the natural and human worlds, Oliver finds that through the literal act of consuming nature can she obtain a form of empowerment that allows her to become one with nature.
Use of Diction, Imagery and Metaphor in Seamus Heaney’s Poem, Blackberry-Picking Seamus Heaney’s poem “Blackberry-Picking” does not merely describe a child’s summer activity of collecting berries for amusement. Rather, it details a stronger motivation, ruled by a more primal urge, guised as a fanciful experience of childhood and its many lessons. This is shown through Heaney’s use of language in the poem, including vibrant diction, intense imagery and powerful metaphor—an uncommon mix coming from a child’s perspective. Heaney emphasizes the importance of the experience of Blackberry picking by using diction that relates to sensory imagery and human urges.
However, the flowers are also a device for focusing on the connection between men. The speaker recognizes in himself the regard that led the lawns keeper to spare the flowers, and, with this recognition, he feels a bond between his values and the other man's values, between his work and the other man's work. Just as earlier he generalised his loneliness to (what it's like to be a human, and what we humans all go through); his joy now leads him to generalise his feeling of connection in purpose. The tuft of flowers serves as a sort of helping force for making up (from an argument) with people. The speakers search for a companion is externalised through his discovery of a 'wildered butterfly', but the hidden (under) scary repeating idea of a 'scythe' stands as a symbol of (being totally separate from others). However, the coming into view of full of life (putting pictures into your mind) of "a leaping tongue of bloom" in a symbolic way reflects a cheerful discovery of a possible companion. This discovery changes the speaker's (distrustful and suspicious of people) tone as reflected through the move/change to a full of life, retroperspective tone of "I told him from the heart, whether they work together or apart", which brings across a hopeful and well/pleasing self-discovery of family relationship which causes/starts (anger) a change
In Galway Kinnell’s poem, “Blackberry Eating,” assonance, alliteration, and refrain are used in reinforcing the poem’s meaning that just like the speaker’s interest for “ripest” blackberries as described throughout the poem, words are also rich and intense, thus one is eating straight from the tree of knowledge.
Nature isn’t just plants and animals all living together. It’s the feeling of joy when you see the most breath taking view. It’s the sense of awe when you see the grand canyons, or a field of wild flowers as far as your eyes can see, or it can even be a simple as a walk on the beach on an early spring morning. As it is shown in the articles, I’ll be discussing how Muir’s and Wordsworth’s tones changed after their experiences with nature and how their experiences affected them in the long
In lines 10-12 Berry says, “And I feel above me the day-blind stars, waiting with their light. For a time, I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” In these three stanzas, he describes a feeling of freedom and rest by the stars that light up the sky. The poet explains about how getting out into the natural world cures him of the agitation and worry that he had been experiencing as he lays awake at home. He feels at peace now, and this is because he can sense and share in the way nature and its creatures live. There is peacefulness in nature because the animal kingdoms do not, unlike humans, have the capacity to worry about the future. And in fact, are emotionless and worry free. The author describes as nature being his stress reliever and something he can always lean on at the end of the
he two poems, “Travelling through the Dark” by William E. Stafford and “Woodchucks” by Maxine Kumin, both share similar thought involving the relationship between humans and nature.
When thinking about nature, Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” John Muir and William Wordsworth both expressed through their writings that nature brought them great joy and satisfaction, as it did Andersen. Each author’s text conveyed very similar messages and represented similar experiences but, the writing style and wording used were significantly different. Wordsworth and Muir express their positive and emotional relationships with nature using diction and imagery.
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.
Many poets are inspired by the impressive persona that exists in nature to influence their style of poetry. The awesome power of nature can bring about thought and provoke certain feelings the poet has towards the natural surroundings.
Nature has inspired countless poets from primitive times to the present. They have used it as a metaphor for virtually all human emotions-his stormy brow, her sky blue eyes, as wild as a summer storm. Very few, however, have so masterfully crafted their verse to fully express the range of nature’s power and influence, or suited the tone of a poem to encompass both human nature and ‘true’ nature. This is true in the poetic works of Robert Frost. The aspects of nature that are continually demonstrated in the poems of Frost symbolize both the physical world and its changes, and the nature of humans.