“Blackberry-Picking” Textual Analysis
1.
Consider the title: Would a poem about blackberry picking be positive or negative? Justify your answer.
2.
As you read the poem the first time, look for the sentences (end punctuation, not a semi-colon). Note where each sentence ends. You will analyze sentences, not lines.
Blackberry-Picking
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Line Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
(5) You ate the 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. The red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam pots
(10) Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields, and potato drills 1
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
(15) Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
2
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
3
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our chache.
(20) 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.
1 Planted rows
2 Bluebeard is a character in a fairy tale who murders his wives.
3 Barn
Textual Analysis: Annotate the text.
Before you tackle these questions discuss (S) speaker and (O) occasion from SOAPSTONE in your groups.
1.
What is the speaker’s tone in the first sentence? How does SETTING and DICTION convey tone in this sentence?
“Late August, given heavy rain and sun / For a full week, the blackberries would ripen” (1-2).
2.
What is the speaker’s attitude in the third sentence? In other words, how does the poet characterize the eating of the blackberries? Does Heaney suggest it to be a pleasant or unpleasant experience?
“ You ate the 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” (5-7).
3.
In that same sentence, what can the reader infer from the choices of “flesh” (5), “blood” (6), and “lust”? In other words, what ideas, experiences, etc. does this DICTION call to mind?
4.
Where is the intensity of feeling that you discovered in question 3 again in the poem in lines 8-16? (Hint: look for DICTION and ALLUSION).

5.
What is the speaker’s attitude towards what happens to his berries in lines 19-20? (Think DICTION and
VISUAL IMAGERY)
6.
“Cache” (19) is a hiding place. Why do people generally hide something? What does this DICTION reveal about how the speaker viewed his store of berries?
7.
Though literally about a young speaker’s reaction to an annual experience, the poem is meant to
SYMBOLIZE a deeper understanding of the human experience.
How can what happens to the young speaker be applied to life in general and how we view life and disappointment. (This is the (P) purpose of SOAPSTONE.