| User | hushedhavoc | | Topic | "Blackberry-Picking" | | Message | I had an assignment on Seamus Heaney’s poem "Blackberry-Picking"...but everyone I’ve spoken to about it think my analysis is bogus. The poem is below. If you have time, please give me your rough analysis.
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.
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| User | Mister Fizzle | 2005-01-08 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | this poem is obviously about having sex with a girl and then regretting it afterward. poor sonofabitch. heh heh
-fizzle |
| User | besodemuerte | 2004-11-15 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | i think it means you can work your ass off trying to find happiness, but in the end you’ll only glimpse it before it turns to bitter disappointment... sorry, i’m miserable today... |
| User | greensnake | 2004-11-05 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | I love this poem, but think that the message is very straight forward. It is impossible to hoard the truly sweet things in our lives. We must enjoy them when they come or we are left with simply something too spoiled to use. We are ever hopeful that we can make intense joy last forever, but it is impossible. We must be contented with the moment. Also did you note the line about covering the bottom of the pail with green berries. I think that he is saying that we try to bury the bitter and sour in our lives with the sweet, but again it is not successful. Just a brief analysis. What was yours? |
| User | hushedhavoc | 2004-09-12 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | yes, and your interpretation of it? |
| User | Webmaster | 2004-09-03 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | right, this was on the last AP exam. |
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