Heaney explores themes of youth and nature in the piece. These two ideas are combined by the poet as he highlights and emphasizes events from his childhood. He remembers what it was like to go outdoors and pick blackberries when they would mature. This poem has a lot of nostalgia for an earlier time. It also alludes to the inevitable passage of time. Blackberries have an expiration date, just like youth has.

Blackberry-Picking Summary

1. Alliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words. Example: “Round hayfields, cornfields, and potato-drills” – The repetition of the “r” sound in “round,” “hayfields,” “cornfields,” and “potato-drills.”
2. Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds in neighboring words. Example: “Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.” – The repetition of the long “a” sound in “briars,” “scratched,” “grass,” “bleached,” and “boots.”
3. Imagery: The use of vivid and descriptive language that appeals to the senses to create mental images. Example: “A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.” – This line creates a vivid mental image of the rat-grey fungus feasting on the spoiled blackberries.
4. Metaphor: A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two different things without using “like” or “as.” Example: “The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.” – The process of the fruit fermenting is compared to the souring of the sweet flesh.
5. Personification: Giving human qualities or characteristics to non-human entities. Example: “The juice was stinking too.” – The juice is given the human quality of “stinking.”
6. Enjambment: The continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of a poem to the next without a pause. Example: “But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.” – The sentence continues from the first line to the second without a pause.
7. Symbolism: The use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. Example: “The rat-grey fungus” – The fungus symbolizes decay and the impermanence of pleasure.
8. Repetition: The repeated use of words or phrases for emphasis. Example: “And dulls to distance all we are.” – The repetition of the “d” sound in “dulls,” “distance,” and “all” creates a sense of monotony and fading.

Blackberry-Picking Summary