Poems
Eric Fykerud
May 3, 2013
Period 2
9th Grade Poetry Book Report
Blackberry picking theme analysis: In the poem Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney, he describes the action of picking blackberries during the summer. This poem has many themes infused within the poem. However some stand out more than others. greed, mortality, and disappointment. First he describes greed the over excessive amount of berries that they would pick. “We trekked and picked until cans ere full”. The kids where not just satisfied with a few blackberries they needed tons and tons of them to themselves. mortality plays a role in this poem too. Although he does not directly say it, he states it in his own way, by describing the blackberries rotting as the time passes. “Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour”. This shows that not everything lasts forever. This theme of mortality also ties into disappointment too. At the end of his poem he described how the kids would never eat all of the blackberries and would be disappointed but nevertheless did the same actions every year. “Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not”.
Blackberry Picking Poem: Late august, given heavy rain and sin for a full eel, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate the first one and its flesh as sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood as 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 here briars scratched and et grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato drills [planted rows]
We trekked and picked until cans ere 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 ere peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's [a fairy tale character who murders his
May 3, 2013
Period 2
9th Grade Poetry Book Report
Blackberry picking theme analysis: In the poem Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney, he describes the action of picking blackberries during the summer. This poem has many themes infused within the poem. However some stand out more than others. greed, mortality, and disappointment. First he describes greed the over excessive amount of berries that they would pick. “We trekked and picked until cans ere full”. The kids where not just satisfied with a few blackberries they needed tons and tons of them to themselves. mortality plays a role in this poem too. Although he does not directly say it, he states it in his own way, by describing the blackberries rotting as the time passes. “Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour”. This shows that not everything lasts forever. This theme of mortality also ties into disappointment too. At the end of his poem he described how the kids would never eat all of the blackberries and would be disappointed but nevertheless did the same actions every year. “Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not”.
Blackberry Picking Poem: Late august, given heavy rain and sin for a full eel, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate the first one and its flesh as sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood as 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 here briars scratched and et grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato drills [planted rows]
We trekked and picked until cans ere 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 ere peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's [a fairy tale character who murders his