Blackberry Picking

In Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry Picking" he uses diction to show how life begins as a simple journey, but progresses into harsh realities. Literarly, this piece is just a reflextion of a childlike activity. But since this is a typical work of heaney it's much more deep than that. The entire poem is written in free verse except for the 3rd and 4th stanza, when he uses end rythm to excentuate the words "Clot" and "Knot". Heaney begins the piece by making accounts of the specific season and month in which the speaker is participating in blackberry picking, he goes on to discuss the details of blackberry picking, and n those details lives the reality of blackberry picking. And by the end of the work Heaney no longer disguises the truth about blackberry picking, he displays the possiblity of death. The childlike views are depleated by the end of the work, and nothing is left.

The 1st stanza is longer than the last stanza, Heaney does this purposelii to show how the years of adolescence are longer than the elderlii years. In the 1st stanza he uses words such as "sweet" and "glossy" to describe the blackberries. The words "sweet" and "glossy" connote freshness, and beauty. And usually children see everything in nature as beautiful without realizing that everything that glitters isn't gold. But Heaney goes then states those same glossy sweet blackberries leave "stains upon the tongue". Stains are common for children to have because they play and don't think of their exterior appearance until they get home and a mother or older person points it out. Stains are extremely difficult to get out of clothes. But as a child one needs the wrong to be pointed out. This shows the childishness waiting to progress into adulthood. AS the piece progresses to the last paragraph the speaker is now in an adult stage because reflections of the dirty harshness of life. The last line in particular connotes this reality because the speaker wishes that the berries will stay fresh but knows that the berries will spoil.

In conclusion, Heaney plays with the structure of the poems, and words to depict the reality that life is full of beautiful things, but nothing is eternal. Life is a long process but death is short and not always sweet.