Analyzing The Poem 'Blackberry-Picking'

The lines in the poem all connect to George and Lennie’s dream, and how it lived in them through different points in the book.

Written in 1980, Galway Kinnell's Blackberry Eating is a poem which creates a strong metaphoric relationship between the tangible objects of blackberries, and the intangible objects of words. The speaker of the poem feels a strong attraction to the sensory characteristics (the touch, taste, and look) of blackberries. The attraction he feels at the beginning of the poem exclusively for blackberries is paralleled in the end by his appetite and attraction to words. The rush the speaker gets out of blackberry eating is paralleled to the enjoyment he finds in thinking about certain words; words which call up the same sensory images the blackberries embody.

One of the most pervasive themes in this passage is that of a spreading decay that is taking over the society. This is first expressed in quite a literal sense, as an actual decay of fruit and produce, which spreads like a virus across the American countryside and farming lands. Due to the economic mismanagement of the farming industry, fruit and other produce are left to rot and decay on the trees because they are not picked by the farmers. The text gives many examples of different fruits being left to decay on the farms. We see, for example, the cherries, that are described at first as “full and sweet”, being left to turn into seeds which “drop and dry with black shreds hanging from them”. The purple prunes, which now “carpet the

From the beginning of William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” the reader is captured by the statement “so much depends” (Williams line 1). As this short work continues the reader is seeing a graceful image that Williams creates. The mind’s eye can envision a painting that is tranquil, yet has the quiet activity of a rural farm home. With this in mind, what exactly is the author sharing with the reader? The poem communicates charmingly the dependence a man has for a vital piece of equipment.

In the music video/song “Strange Fruit”, the phrase strange fruit doesn’t really refer to a fruit that is strange. It actually refers to people being lynched and hanging from trees. More specifically, the term strange fruit applies to the lynching of African Americans. This song was performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 at the Cafe Society in New York. The music video was actually a recorded performance from 1959. The song was written and performed because the purpose of was to raise awareness and fight against African American lynching because during that time, African Americans were being discriminated and abused. Billie Holiday in the music video/song “Strange Fruit” displays logos through context and imagery, pathos through her sorrowful tone and facial expressions, and lastly, ethos because she won many awards during her career in singing, and Strange Fruit is one of them.

Slaves did not have maps or gps to guide them to the freedom. Freedom for them was making it to New York. Many of the slaves wanted to go as far as upstate New York and Canada. Every slaves dream was making it to the North because in the North slavery was abolished. Most of them did not attend school to have knowledge of which way the north was. Most slaves tried to leave and escape but was often caught by their masters and was beaten or worse - killed. So Older slaves came up with a way to help other slaves make it out and know which way to go. They came up with a song called Follow the Drinking Gourd. The song was created by a man who was the conductor of the Underground Railroad named Peg Leg Joe.

“Ancestral lines” by John Barker is a book about the anthropologist’s experience in the Uiaku village located in Papua New Guinea. In the first chapter, Barker tells his readers briefly about him and his education, his and his wife’s experience with the Maisin community, and talks in great detail about the Maisin and their culture in the Uiaku village.

In “Monkey Hill,” Stan Rice writes about the speaker of the poem who sits at a zoo with his friend observing the spider monkey exhibit. The two stay the whole day to observe these monkeys. The speaker becomes envious of these monkeys and their ability to be confident with exactly where they are and with who they are. Rice argues that our minds imprison us when we are worried about judgment from others. The monkeys in the exhibit felt free and at ease while the two observers were trapped in worrisome about the outside world in fear of how others would perceive them.

From the beginning of the poem, the speaker tells of his naïve, consuming world of blackberries. Because the

The poem “Persimmons” by Li- Young Lee tells the story about the poet’s life, flashing back to his early childhood and adulthood having trouble adjusting to the English language. English was not his first language, which caused more confusion than understanding of new words. Persimmons shows how words can mean different things, but also how when someone truly loves you, some opposite words can have the same meaning. The poet is bashed by his sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Walker, but with the help of his mother and father he can overcome English boundaries and gain knowledge through their love.

Module 9 Poetry Prompt Ashton Thompson “Blackberry Eating” Essay The poem “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell is short but complex as it describes the narrator’s deep love for blackberries. The use of musical devices such as cacophony, alliteration, and repetition reinforces the overall meaning of the poem by mimicking the narrator’s pleasant experience eating the fruit. Kinnell transports the reader to “late September” as he expresses the narrator’s attraction to the “fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries.” Kinnell’s use of cacophony is evident throughout the entire poem as he stresses the ‘K’ sound to emphasize the tart, exploding characteristics of the berries.

Leslie Norris’ use of symbolism in “Blackberries” is a critical and powerful vehicle to communicate a central idea. Woven throughout the fabric of the story, the cap symbolizes opposing perspectives of the intrinsic value in various gestures. We are introduced to this when two of the key characters, the mother and the son, are purchasing a cap. This emotional and financial transaction is experienced very differently by the mother and the son. The son simply views the cap as an object that he “want[s]..very much” and nothing more. The mother, however, makes the purchase because she wants to please him, even though the cap was “expensive enough”. The pay off for her being, the happiness of her child translates into her sense of satisfaction

fair”, you can tell this is the voice of a child. There is also a

In Ron Rash’s “Blackberries in June,” it was easy to be immediately drawn into the story. People can relate to the life of Matt and Jamie. Their life of being married after high school and having a house of their own is a plan many people work to strive towards when in love after high school. Their life seems almost perfect or typical throughout the story. A wonderful and happy marriage with the wholesome relations with the other family members, and some tenseness between an in-law shows how Matt and Jamie’s lives are what seems to be, normal. When Charlton (Jamie’s brother) has an accident and loses his leg, Matt is determined to still follow their dreams and plans

In "Snapping Beans" by Lisa Parker, she strategically utilizes figure of speech such as tone, imagery, and symbolism. She expresses the poem in the first-person view while including diction which helps enhance the overall mood and attitude that Lisa 's poem initially conveys in her piece. Including the title "Snapping Beans" itself, Lisa marvelously showcase the poem 's concentration on two individuals’ in correlation to the connection amongst two individuals '. She presents the adaptation of human nature between the main character and her grandmother with the inclusion of symbolic imagery, and the fluctuation of tone that is easily depicted throughout the piece.