The Importance of Black Berry Picking

The Importance of Black Berry Picking

Preserving lives moments, holding on to every breath, clinging on until inevitable loss and alteration disintegrates it. Seamus Heaney’s poem “Blackberry-Picking,” illuminates the importance of childhood memories but also staying in touch with reality and realizing that as time goes on all these moments slowly fade away. Heaney uses imagery, diction, and metaphors bringing the poem to life and giving the readers a deep and subtle emotion as they look back at his childhood through the eyes of a adult switching from joy to utter disappointment.

Eating the first berry was compared to “sweet flesh,” and “thickened wine,” (lines 5-6) giving him explosion of life and led the want to “lust for picking,” (line 7-8). Using diction helps portray the urge and sensory images by describing the taste of the berries and the lust for wanting them. Unaware of danger they are driven to gather these berries, “where briars scratched and wet grass bleached out boots,” (line 10). “Our hands were peppered with thorn pricks,” (lines 15-16) these moments picking the berries weren’t necessarily jolly time, the metaphors, imagery, and diction used show that these memories affected Heaney in many ways.

“A chore,” many would think when asked to pick blackberries but to Heaney it was more than that. The sound of the berries dropping into the “milk cans, pea tins, and jam pots,” (line 8) the pleasure of the berries turning sweet and enjoying the harvest while it lasts. “Summer’s blood was in it,” (line 6) the taste of hard labour imbedded in these “glossy purple clots,” (line 3) showing that they are more than just berries but a life of their own, each one with extraordinary flavour. As an adult looking back at old memories that were folded away for years, the want of going back to these precious days begins to grow inside. “Hunger sent us,” (lines 8-9) their stomachs racing to the round hayfields, the passion Heaney is portraying as he retrospects his excitement to begin hoarding these delicious berries. This was all he needed, but not all good things last.

“Sweet flesh would turn sour,” (line 21) the transformation from feeling a sort of accomplishment turns into a disturbing vibe. He begins to feel the loss of everything around him, all