Seamus Heaney's Blackberry-Picking

In “Oranges”, Gary Soto puts the reader in a romantic scene where a boy is on a date with a girl. The boy’s affection is shown by what he does with two oranges. He is not particularly wealthy so he uses one orange as payment for a chocolate bar. While the girl eats the chocolate he eats his other orange. Instead of having the chocolate or even sharing it, he is selfless and gives the whole bar to her.

Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Blackberries” was published in 1992. This poem is about a ten-year-old boy and his job picking and selling blackberries. The young boy who is not named is the narrator of the poem. The nameless boy narrates his life as it occurs in a rural and poor community. Although, the poem is about blackberries there are much deeper meanings running through the poem.

In “Golden Glade” Warren uses the literary elements of similes, alliteration, and word choice to create an overall image that conveys his ideas. The speaker recalls an adventure he had as boy where he strolls through the woods, a “heart aimless as rifle, boy blankness of mood” (3). The simile emphasizes the innocence of youth and the idea that children find satisfaction in simply exploring without any intention of finding a specific location. As the boy continues to wander he passes a gorge with “foam white on/wet stone, stone wet-black, white water tumbling” (7-8) The alliteration provides a rhythm that imitates the flow of the stream as it trickles through the rocks which increases the vividity of the image of the gorge. When the speaker

Few things are as enchanting as late summer, when the days are long and warm and berries grow ripe. Blackberries are the subject of poet Galway Kinnell’s poem Blackberry Eating, in which he discusses the richness of blackberries and uses them to describe his fondness of words. He gives meaning to his own words through the use of musical devices including imagery, repetition, connotation, and syntax. Throughout Kinnell’s poem, the speaker makes extensive use of imagery.

For the first ‘bare’ part of her life, Janie is a mule not to a man but to her own grandmother. In her youth, Janie yearns for relationships and objects that to her symbolize freedom. She is drawn to a blossoming pear tree because of how its “barren brown stems [turn] to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds from snowy virginity” (10), Here, Janie is awed by something changed from ‘barren’ to beautiful as she struggles with the suppression of her grandmother, who goes on to bash Janie for kissing a boy through a gatepost. It is clear Janie associates the pear tree with freedom, as she was avoiding her chores to sit under it. Thus, the beauty she finds in the turn from stem to blossom is directly correlated with the joy she finds in the escape from her grandmother and discovery of freedom.

The author also uses imagery in the following quote, “Watermelon is the ambrosia of the household, closely followed by cantaloupe, strawberries, and cherries.” Through this quote the author conveys the idea to the reader that the family admires watermelon. Since the author refers to the watermelon as ambrosia, meaning the food of the gods, the readers can imagine that the taste of watermelon which might make them want it. The usage of imagery throughout the article allows the readers to view food from the same perspective as her

The controlling image of the poem is a simile: the comparison of blackberries and words. Each element of the simile, however,

“An Entrance to the Woods” is an essay by Wendell Berry about the serenity and importance of nature in his life. In this essay, the author uses tone shifts from dark to light to convey his idea of finding rebirth and rejuvenation through nature. In the beginning of the essay, Berry has left civilization for the first time in a while, and finds himself missing human company and feeling “inexplicably sad” (671). This feeling of sadness is in part from the woods itself, and partly due to Berry leaving the hustle and bustle of normal life in the cities, and the violent change from constant noise to silence causes him to feel lonely in the woods. As a result of feeling alone in the woods, the tone of the essay is dark and brooding, as seen through Berry’s somber diction and mood, as seen on page 671: “And then a heavy feeling of melancholy and lonesomeness comes over me.

The speaker does not dwell on the hardships he has just endured, but instead remarks that he feels “painted and glittered.” The diction used towards the end of the work conveys the new attitude of the speaker. He is overcome with his triumph over the swamp, and now indulges in the beauty of new life and rebirth after struggle. Oliver’s strong diction conveys the speaker’s transformation and personal growth over

as in her final moments the narrator recalls her earliest connection to the landscape. A key theme throughout the poem is the importance of embracing nature, emphasized by the metaphor of the “fine pumpkins grown on a trellis” which rise in towards the “fastness of light”, which symbolizes the narrators own growth, flourishing as a fruit of the earth. Through her metaphors and complex conflagration of shifting perspectives, Harwood illustrates the relationship that people can develop with landscapes, seeing both present and past in

The selection of detail in the following lines, “Page after page, your poems were stirring my

Dillard implements imagery all throughout her essay, which gives the reader a clear picture of the events occurring. For instance, she describes her husband “gesturing inside a circle of darkness” as a result of him gradually travelling farther away from her (Dillard). Ultimately, the use of imagery in this case represents the loneliness the narrator begins to feel. The author also utilizes metaphors to get her message across. Dillard compares “grammar and lexicon” to a “decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel” because without the other, they will not be able to fulfill their purpose (Dillard).

This is done using imagery, diction, and metaphors. From the beginning of the poem the word choice gives a feeling of purity with the vibe of blame. The narrator attracts the reader by painting a picture of having crisp, sticky juices recolored on his hand as though

The agony the writer is feeling about his son 's death, as well as the hint of optimism through planting the tree is powerfully depicted through the devices of diction and imagery throughout the poem. In the first stanza the speaker describes the setting when planting the Sequoia; “Rain blacked the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific, / And the sky above us stayed the dull gray.” The speaker uses a lexicon of words such as “blackened”, “cold” and “dull gray” which all introduce a harsh and sorrowful tone to the poem. Pathetic fallacy is also used through the imagery of nature;

In the poem “Blackberry-Picking,” author Seamus Heaney uses imagery, diction, and metaphor in order to describe the narrator’s experience while picking blackberries with someone. Heaney uses imagery throughout the poem. He begins in the first stanza, line three when he describes one of the blackberries, “At first, just one, a glossy purple dot.” This clarifies the ripeness and desirability of the blackberry. The following line, “Among others, red, green, hard as a knot,” describes the blackberries that are less than desireable; the unripe ones.