Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry-Picking" Commentary

"Blackberry-Picking"
By Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Commentary

In Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry-Picking”, the poet uses imagery and diction to describe the process and feelings one endures while picking blackberries, as the title suggests. Heaney also uses other literary devices, like metaphors and similes, which make the idea of blackberry picking as a child more in-depth and stand for something else. As the innocence of waiting all year to have the pleasure and excitement of harvesting and picking blackberries ends, so does the child’s innocence.

In the first stanza the speaker experiences the excitement of picking the first “glossy purple clot” while patiently waiting for the others to ripen, as they were “hard as a knot”. The speaker says, “you ate the first one and its flesh was sweet like thickened wine”. The use of the simile puts emphasis on the sweetness and joy that came with picking blackberries, which is comparable to the wonderful taste that one has while drinking wine. The poet uses the innocence of the blackberry picking seems to signify the innocence of a child’s life as the "sweet flesh" and “summer’s blood” seems to represent the life’s goodness. Also, the speaker states, “we trekked and picked until the cans were full”, which suggests these children, picked every delicious blackberry in sight. Hence, this may represent the passion they have for life as they realize its decency. All of these vivid images allow the reader to actually see and image what is the speaker is talking about. The imagery sets the tone for the first stanza, as it is full of joy, happiness, and passion.

As the poem transitions from first to the second stanza, so does the tone of the poem. As the individuals in the poem try to hoard the blackberries in the byre, “a rat-grey fungus” consumes them. As the blackberries are diminishing from the first stanza, which seems to symbolize a child’s innocence and life, the second stanza seems to represent the loss of innocence and death. The second stanza is full of images that seem to resemble images of decomposition. The images of the fruit fermenting as “the sweet flesh would turn sour”, remind the reader that as berries ripen, so does one’s life as it comes to an end…death. The overall tone changes in the second stanza, as the first stanza is full of life’s happiness and the second stanza is full of sadness as life rots. The speaker comes to this realization and concludes, “each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not”, which suggests all good things come to an end.

In conclusion, Seamus Heaney uses diction, imagery, and figurative language to explain how the bittersweet things in life come to an end. The use of figurative language emphasizes this and the idea that nothing in life comes easy. Heaney uses the innocent images of blackberry picking in comparison to the challenges one endures in their life, including death, which represents the loss of innocence. Though the speaker enjoyed and had a passion for blackberry picking, the speaker also had to take in the pain that came along with it.