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User Rating: |
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7.5
/10
(115
votes)
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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.
Seamus Heaney
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Read poems about / on: august, lust, purple, green, red, summer, rain, dark, sun, hope
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Comments about this poem (Blackberry-picking
by
Seamus Heaney
) |
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comments about this poem (Blackberry-picking by
Seamus Heaney
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Joe Schmoe
(5/12/2009 11:57:00 PM) |
Look up 'Bluebeard' if you don't think this poem has a darker meaning
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Andrew Blakemore
(3/20/2009 5:21:00 PM) |
I love the descriptive quality of this most beautiful piece, the imagery gives life to the words. Seamus you are a legend! Best wishes, Andrew
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Ahmad Shiddiqi
(10/9/2008 9:39:00 PM) |
rustic! pastoral! greeny hills, woods, trees, and honest villagers! very brilliant! keep writing! could you read and comment on my poems too?
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Patricia Goney
(6/29/2008 9:20:00 AM) |
.....hello...this so reminds me of berry picking time..in the hills of my childhood home in tennessee.....rough little hands colored dark stains....smell of blackberry fermenting......the sadness i felt...knowing all i loved in this small process of life....was going....away.
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Johnny Muir
(6/17/2008 7:48:00 AM) |
Hi, I work for the BBC in Belfast and am working on a documentary to mark Seamus Heaney's 70th birthday. His work is studied (and written about in exams) by people all over the world and I am trying to find out what impact it has them. In this poem he writes about Co Derry, Ireland - yet it clearly has a resonance for people all over the world. I would love to hear anyone's comments on what Heaney's poetry means to them. Tell me about individual poems that have made an impact on you and why!
Cheers,
johnny.muir@bbc.co.uk
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Karen Stall
(4/29/2008 12:01:00 PM) |
This poem reminds me of Frost's poem 'Nothing Gold Can Stay'. I think it is about the anticipation, exhilaration, and gratification found in those very special life moments. It doesn't lead me to believe it is necessarily representative of the passage of life...but rather the time factor represents how those very special moments in time that we look forward to and relish while they are present...pass...and it is in that passing, that spoiling of the fruit, that brief time of rich ripeness which happens shortly before the spoilage...it is just that, where we realize the richness of the moment and look forward to the chance to experience that fruit yet again.
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Paul Butters
(3/1/2008 8:30:00 AM) |
In the late 1960s a fellow sixth former wrote a very expressive story from this poem. This inspired me to write my own story ('Forest') , which I later converted into a poem of the same title. We were trying to capture the sheer sensuousness of Seamus's original, though I Noted the 'darker side' too. I prefer happier endings but still 10\10 from me.
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Brandon Yen
(11/27/2007 10:30:00 PM) |
One of the main ideas for this poem could be that too much of a good thing can be bad. The poem describes the good qualities of the berries, and implies that a lot of the berries are picked due to the sweet flesh and the tastes of summer. When the 'cans were full', the berries were stored and kept for future comsumption. However, because there were so many, the unused portions rotted into fungus, the 'fruit fermented', and the 'sweet flesh would turn sour'. This could relate to any kind of perishable food. Many foods will expire in time, and in this case, time killed the berries and apparently lowered the hopes of the picker.
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