Blackberry-Picking Essay

"The garden is delightful. The fruit trees and flowering shrubs form a pleasant variety. We have green peas almost fit to eat and as fine lettuce as you ever saw. The mockingbirds surround our evening and morning. The weather is mild and the vegetable world progressing to perfection. We have in the same orchard apples, pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums of various kinds, figs, pomegranate, and oranges. And we have strawberries which measure three inches around." (“Biography Of Nathanael Greene”)

Bruce Dawe uses symbols to create moods showing sadness and the loss of hope. Dawe’s line ‘and when the loaded ute bumps down the drive past the blackberry canes with their last shriveled fruit’, the blackberries were used as an indicator of time, on their arrival the berries were the 'first of the season' but by the time when they drove past the blackberry cane was they're saw only 'their last shrivelled fruit'. This tells us that they perhaps only stayed for about two or three months. ‘The brown kelpie pup will start dashing about, tripping everyone up’ The dog run around barking, shows the scene of a chaotic house, it also conveys a sense of bad luck to the family. A “kelpie” is an Australian sheepdog, in Scottish it refers to an evil water spirit that takes the form of a horse and drowns travellers. This cross-meaning gives the poem a sense of danger, implying that the family is not only traveling with a puppy for the children but is also an omen of bad luck. The unexpectedness of the move is conveyed by the fact that the tomatoes are still green on the vine. They never live in the one place long enough for the tomatoes to ripen. This could be the same for other aspects of their lives, making new friends could be an example. They started to become friendly with the

“Blackberries in June” by Ron Rash, is about a couple, Matt and Jamie, who have a very pessimistic family, especially when it comes to the young couples accomplishments in life. What makes Jamie and Matt different from the other family members? They have a lot of determination, motivation, discipline, and are willing to make sacrifices necessary to get where they want to be in life. Throughout the story, the author gives a variety of examples of just how different these two characters are in particular. The three qualities that are the most different from the rest of the family are unlike them they are goal oriented, hard working, and make the necessary sacrifices.

The berries appear twice in the poem. At the start “she held out her hands bright with berries, the first of the season”. Here they appear as bright and in season or ready to eat. They also appear at the end of the poem as “shrivelled fruit”. This means that the berries would be old and simply not enjoyable to eat. This shows that the family is not in a place long enough to be able to grow a healthy crop. These berries represent the family as they also appear to be happy at the start of the poem as they were settled in their home, loving life however after the father announces that they would be moving, turned into ‘shrivelled fruit’ as they are thought to be sad and unhappy due to their constant movements. This relates to shrivelled fruit as it is not

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

Many people also by reading, author’s memories are able to relate to what they experienced in a similar fashion. In addition, writer often feel a sense of

In Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Blackberries,” a youthful speaker seems to be living past the boundaries of city life and exhibits qualities of rural living. The poem tells of the speaker’s adventure of picking blackberries from a thicket and encountering the duality of urban society. Readers of “Blackberries” might at first be puzzled by the speaker’s youthful memory of picking berries, but a closer analysis of the poem allows readers to recognize that the speaker’s internal conflict originates from strict societal boundaries and the loss of his childhood innocence.

Once the reader can passes up the surface meaning of the poem Blackberry-Picking, by Seamus Heaney, past the emotional switch from sheer joy to utter disappointment, past the childhood memories, the underlying meaning can be quite disturbing. Hidden deep within the happy-go-lucky rifts of childhood is a disturbing tale of greed and murder. Seamus Heaney, through clever diction, ghastly imagery, misguided metaphors and abruptly changing forms, ingeniously tells the tale that is understood and rarely spoken aloud.

Two of the poems written by Seamus Heaney, “Digging” and “Blackberry Picking”, contain recurring themes while both discussing entirely different scenes. The first poem, “Digging”, talks about Heaney’s memories of hearing his father digging in the potato garden outside the house. The second poem, “Blackberry-Picking”, carries a similar solemn tone, while describing another memory of Heaney’s of his experience with picking blackberries. These poems by Heaney share similar themes of reflection of his past experiences in which he dissects important life lessons from everyday events such as the passage of time and the uncertainty of life.

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

This level of rich memory relates the reader to the experience, making it easier for that person to remember the events being explained. As once said by George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." With all the people who endured this first hand gone, it is a rare and wondrous thing to behold an entire story from beginning to end by someone who lived it first hand.

In the poem “After Apple-Picking”, Robert Frost has cleverly disguised many symbols and allusions to enhance the meaning of the poem. One must understand the parallel to understand the central theme of the poem. The apple mentioned in the poem could be connected to the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. It essentially is the beginning of everything earthly and heavenly, therefore repelling death. To understand the complete meaning of Frost’s poem one needs to be aware that for something to be dead, it must have once had life. Life and death are common themes in poetry, but this poem focuses on what is in between, life’s missed experiences and the regret that the speaker is left with.

All poetry aims to communicate an experience; a body of memory, sensation, or wisdom that contributes significant meaning to the life of a poet and of all human beings. It is the mystery of literature that one may speak of a single, physical incident, yet draw deep universal conclusions from it. Like the Christian dogma of the Word made Flesh, the Christ both fully mortal and fully divine, the best of poetry dwells paradoxically in the realms of both literal and figurative. Seamus Heaney's poem, Blackberry-Picking, exhibits a precise, elegant poetic technique that permits such a simultaneous existence. Through his use of overt religious allusions, intense, metaphorical imagery, and sharply contrasting symbols, Heaney reveals a young protagonist's journey from childhood to adulthood, or in essence, immaturity to maturity, with a focus on the speaker’s reconciliation with an inconvenient yet inevitable truth - in essence, creating a Bildungsroman.