Blackberry Picking
Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet was born on the 13th of April 1939 in Northern Ireland. Born into an agricultural family, Heaney spent majority of his childhood amongst trees, plants, crops and cultivation. Seamus Heaney’s poems depict his childhood i.e. are an allegory of his childhood. Set in the Irish Farms the poem is written in first person. Through ‘Blackberry Picking’ Heaney recalls his yearly practice of picking the Blackberries late summer. On the first read, the theme of the poem may seem to be ‘Blackberries’, but through his poetry Heaney also addresses the aspects of Greed and End.
‘Blackberry Picking’ begins by presenting the picking of Blackberries. Heaney makes abundant use adjectives to describe the succulence of the berries and the pleasure that waits. He refers to them as ‘sweet flesh’, illustrating their tenderness and flavour. Heaney uses a simile to compare the taste of the blackberry to that of thickened wine. Phrases such as ‘Like...was in it’, exemplify the brightness and warmth it brings with it. How it was specific to summer and lit up the atmosphere. Heaney makes use of many adjectives of colour, suggesting that the excitement was such that the collectors picked up any berry they saw; purple, red and green (unripe). The following lines give a picture of the sheer joy and excitement the berries brought with them. The fervour was such that the hoarders took containers of every shape and size ranging from milk cans to jam pots.
Towards the end of the first half Heaney makes a reference to Bluebeard. Bluebeard is a fairy tale character who murders his wives. At first, the example seems irrelevant as a fairy tale character and blackberries have nothing in common. This is a result of enjambment. The idea in the previous line has an abrupt end and then carries on into the next line. The complete line reads ‘Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s’. Here Heaney uses a simile the dark sticky blackberry juice on the collector’s hands to the blood on Bluebeard’s hands. Here Heaney makes a direct linkage to murder. Murder of the blackberries, how once picked the berries will soon perish. Carrying on from this idea, Heaney moves on to explain how quickly a berry perishes. How the lusciousness of the fresh fruit fades out and ‘fur’ and ‘rat grey fungus’ set in. ‘...grey fungus’ , another reference to colour. The berries which were once like ‘thickened wine’ now smell of rot. The poem closes with ‘Each year...they would not’. Here Heaney shows his acceptance to the fact that despite his hope, he knows that the berries would eventually rot and he would have to discard them.
