Blackberry Picking

Seamus Heaney's 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
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. "

 Romanticism describes a world centered on nature, creation and neglects the idea of realism. A key feature of may romanticism and their ideal is the importance of emotion over reason. Considered “irrational” to many, the art of Romantics grew from emotion. Seamus Heaney’s poem Blackberry Picking creates a romantic world, one centered on the art of blackberry picking. Heaney turns the simple hobby of blackberry picking into an art, and parallels it to life itself. Although the poem is seemingly simple, in combination with its nature-like imagery and its emotional diction, the poem represents a romantic piece of work. Heaney’s use of nature imagery is a common characteristic of romanticism work. Images like “late august, given heavy rain and sun” create an opening image of the poem, but the image of rain provokes emotions that rain often evoke, such as sadness, while in contrast the image of “august” and the “sun” do the opposite, leaving the reader conflicted in the emotions. Even though the beginning imagery evokes a confliction of emotions, it follows the romantic theory of beautiful. How do we know what is beautiful? Based on how we feel. It is a subjective concept, and our truths are based on those feelings. As a result, one may view the imagery of rain as beautiful and evoke positive emotions, and vice versa. Heaney’s nature images also exemplify the concept of natural piety.

As the narrator explains, they find join in the art of blackberry picking. Their connection with nature in seen through Heaney’s figurative language. Describing the blackberry’s “flash” as “sweet like thickened wine” suggests the narrator’s enjoyment of the berries. The narrator’s connection with nature is a common characteristic of romantic works. In contrast, in the second stanza, Heaney shifts towards a different emotion, one less happy than the first. Describing how the blackberry’s turn to rot, Heaney’s poem parallels a theme of life: nothing lasts forever. This theme of Heaney’s poem is opposite of a Romantic view, with Romanticism being deeply rooted in the belief of the “unrealistic”. Romanticism follows the idea of “dreaming”, and strays away from facing the reality of life. Although Heaney’s poem follows a theme about the unfortunate reality of life, it follows similar ideas, such as a love for nature, beauty and the power of emotion. Said by Wordworth’s “Preface to Lyical Ballads”, “Our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity”, the quote summarizes the poem. The narrator finds joy in the “simplicity” of blackberry picking. As the narrator is being described as following into “lust” for the blackberries and having “peppered hands” from the blackberries, it exemplifies their “elementary feelings” as lust and dirty hands are often associated for the young and elementary.