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“Blackberry-Picking” Introduction
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"Blackberry-Picking" was written by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney and first published in 1966, in the collection Death of a Naturalist. The poem depicts a seemingly innocent childhood memory of picking blackberries in August. Written from an adult's point of view, the poem uses this experience of picking blackberries and watching them spoil as an extended metaphor for the painful process of growing up and losing childhood innocence.
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“Blackberry-Picking” Summary
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The speaker, looking back in time, describes a period in late August when, if there was enough heavy rain and sunshine, blackberries would ripen over a single one-week period. One would ripen first, before the others, resembling a shiny purple clump, contrasting with those that weren't yet ripe and still remained red, green, and very firm. The speaker addresses "you" (this could be the reader, the speaker, or an unspecified individual from the speaker's life). This "you" ate that first blackberry and it was sweet like wine that has started to ferment and thicken. The blackberry juice was like the essence of summer. The dark juice left stains on the tongues of those who ate the berries and the taste inspired a strong urge to pick more berries. The previously unripe red berries then also became ripe, gaining a dark color like ink. The blackberry pickers, eager for more, went outside with their various containers for picking and into the prickly blackberry bushes, which scratched them while the wet grass left marks on their boots. The pickers crossed hayfields, cornfields, and potato drills (shallow ditches for growing potatoes). Throughout this journey, they picked berries until their containers were full and the bottom of each can, which made a tinkling sound when the blackberries dropped into it at first, was covered. They first picked the green, unripe blackberries, which sat at the bottom, and then the darker, riper berries. These darker ones remained on top and the speaker compares them to a plate of staring eyes. When they were done, the blackberry pickers' hands would be sprinkled with pricks of thorns from the blackberry bush briars and their palms would be sticky with blackberry juice. The speaker compares their sticky hands to those of Bluebeard (a fictional character known for murdering his wives).
The pickers stockpiled and saved the fresh berries in a barn, inside a bathtub, which they filled to the brim with berries. But then they discovered fuzzy gray mold taking over their valuable collection of blackberries. The blackberry juice would stink with the odor of fermentation and rot. After they had been picked, the berries would spoil and become sour. The loss of the berries always made the speaker want to cry, because it seemed unfair that the containers full of juicy, ripe berries ended up stinking and rotting. Every year, the speaker hoped the blackberries would stay fresh, even though they knew this was not possible.
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“Blackberry-Picking” Themes
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Growing Up and the Transience of Youth
In "Blackberry-Picking," the speaker describes a seemingly sweet childhood memory of picking blackberries in summer. The first stanza describes this act, building up a sense of anticipation, while the second describes what happens after the blackberries have been picked and stored in the "byre" (a barn or shed): they get moldy and rot, resulting in bitter disappointment for the speaker. This experience of blackberry-picking serves as an extended metaphor for the tempestuous process of growing up, something that is just as inevitable as the blackberries getting moldy.
The poem sets the scene in late August, a time of year marked by transformation. Blackberries are ripening, a process that can be compared to a child maturing (people are often said to "ripen with age"). The time at which the poem is set indicates a point of seasonal change, comparable to the transition from childhood to adolescence. The reference to "summer’s blood" also highlights the death of summer, implying the death of childhood, and the subsequent start of the harvest season. The poem itself then describes an act of harvest, which starts with the taste of a "sweet" berry ("that first one") and ends in "lovely canfuls [that] smelt of rot," mirroring the natural decay that eventually comes with aging.
The poem’s first lines, however, still suggest a sense of hope and anticipation, as "for a full week, the blackberries would ripen." But the environment in which they do so is tempestuous: there's a mix of "heavy rain and sun," both of which are needed for the blackberries to ripen. This reflects the realities of life, which has its own rain and sun, figuratively speaking—moments of dark and light, bad and good, negative and positive. Both the "heavy rain and sun" of life help people grow and mature, just like the blackberries.
What's more, the process of blackberry-picking itself is shown in somewhat violent terms. This innocent childhood act is not as simple, easy, or painless as it might first seem, much like growing up itself. The language used to describe blackberry-picking is raw and aggressive: the "briars scratched" and the "wet grass bleached our boots." Afterwards, the speaker’s "hands were peppered / With thorn pricks." The children are left with physical marks. Similarly, eating the blackberries is described as "Leaving stains upon the tongue."
The violence of this language is made even more ominous by the description of the dark berries that "burned / Like a plate of eyes." The dark eyes watching appear to be threatening, a sense that is affirmed by the allusion to Bluebeard. The comparison of the children’s blackberry-stained hands to those of Bluebeard, a murderer, suggests the children themselves are not so innocent as they may first appear. They are painted in animalistic terms as they eat the sweet "flesh" of the berries and are driven by a "lust for / Picking."
Ultimately, it's not the speaker’s active choice to go blackberry picking. Rather, the speaker’s hunger is the driver: "hunger / sent us out." The speaker's desire for the berries thus seems unavoidable, like a basic need for food. The fact that the speaker develops a "lust for / Picking" further suggests a lack of control. This mirrors the reality that people—although they may "hunger" for the knowledge and freedom of adulthood—really have no control over growing up. The simply will grow up in time and lose their youth whether they like it or not, just as the berries inevitably "turn sour."
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Before Line 1
- Lines 1-24
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Adult Wisdom and Acceptance
Growing up and getting older goes hand-in-hand with a loss of childhood innocence—a second major theme in the poem. The speaker of the poem describes a childhood memory from an adult’s point of view. The poem's events all occur in the past, and this memory is thus painted with the knowledge of a person who is aware of the transience of youth, who no longer possesses their own childhood innocence, and who is well acquainted with life’s inevitable disappointments.
The second stanza of the poem delivers on the ominous promise made by the first. In the end, the experience of blackberry-picking is marred by the simple fact that the blackberries don’t keep and instead get moldy. It's impossible to avoid such disappointments and losses in life, the poem suggests—a fact that people come to realize as they grow up and lose their childish innocence.
To that end, the process of decay is described in repulsive, negative terms. The mold on the berries is "a fur, / A rat-grey fungus." The smell is also bad: "The juice was stinking too," and “the lovely canfuls smelt of rot." The unsavory sense of taste is depicted with the phrase "the sweet flesh would turn sour." The second stanza thus provides a stark contrast to the image of innocent children cheerfully picking blackberries, speaking instead, through its vivid description of decay, to the trauma of that innocence being lost.
The end result of "Blackberry-Picking" (both the poem and the process) is one that can’t be avoided—the rotting. This is made clear as the speaker emphasizes that this is an annual event, witnessed repeatedly: "I always felt like crying" and "Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not." The outcome is always the same. The speaker’s disillusionment takes time, however, as the speaker repeatedly witnesses with distress the inevitable cycle of harvesting and rotting. The speaker also notes that "It wasn’t fair" that the blackberries rotted. This reflects the fact that there is an injustice that comes with getting older. It’s not something people do because they want to, but because it’s unavoidable.
One reading of the poem might interpret it as the speaker's ultimate acceptance of this inevitability. The poem itself marks a moment of resignation, as if the speaker is finally coming to terms with the way youth's sweetness must come to an end. The epigraph sometimes published with the poem, "for Philip Hobsbaum," could also be interpreted as an adult’s acceptance that life is filled with loss and disappointment. Hobsbaum was Seamus Heaney’s teacher. Teachers are often heroes of a person’s childhood. If the speaker is to be equated with Heaney himself, the poem might serve as his message to the teacher that he is now grown and understands adult realities.
In depicting a childhood memory from an adult’s point of view, "Blackberry-Picking" shows how people come to resign themselves to life’s disappointments as they grow up. Although this is both inevitable and natural, it is bittersweet as the innocence of childhood gives way to the wisdom of adulthood. The process of change (of growing up, ripening, maturing) is not a calm one, the poem implies, but the poem also suggests that this adult wisdom itself may be a reward of sorts. Accepting these inevitabilities instead of mourning them is one way to make peace with the harsh reality of life.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Before Line 1
- Lines 17-24
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Blackberry-Picking”
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Lines 1-4
Late August, given ...
... as a knot.The first line of the poem sets the scene in late August and paints a tempestuous picture, as it describes the "heavy rain and sun" of late summer storms. The rain and sun are needed, however, as the word "given" emphasizes. That is, the blackberries ripen only if there's enough sun and rain, and would presumably fail to ripen without these elements. This emphasis hints at the way that growing up, which will soon be revealed to be a key theme of the poem, requires a certain degree of strife, just as the blackberries need harsh weather to ripen. The first line starts with unstressed-stressed iambic pentameter, which means that there are five poetic feet per line with a da-DUM rhythm:
Late Aug- | ust, giv- | en hea- | vy rain | and sun
This steady meter mirrors the rhythmic turning of the seasons, further highlighting the passage of time in the poem.
The second line builds a sense of suspense with the words "For a full week," as the word "full" implies a sense of anticipation and waiting. The eager blackberry-pickers must wait the full seven days, to the very end of the week, for the berries to ripen. The alliteration ("For a full") and assonance used ("glossy purple clot") create round, robust language that builds up this sense of promise. The speaker uses past tense here ("would ripen"), making it clear that this is a memory being reflected upon from the perspective of an older person.
The first four lines also establish the poem's A/A/B/B rhyme scheme ("sun"/"ripen" and "clot"/"knot"). This is carried throughout the poem, although often in the form of slant rhyme. The poem is full of visual imagery, exemplified in lines three and four as the speaker describes the "glossy purple clot" of a ripe berry and contrasts it to "the others, red, green, hard as a knot." These bright, vivid images bring the stanza to life and emphasize the lively, hopeful atmosphere of the children's berry-picking. A simile is used to describe the texture of the unripened berries, "hard as a knot" (like a knot in a person's back, contrasting with the "just one" ripe berry in line 3. The use of caesura, in the commas around "just one," further sets apart this one ripe berry and heightens the anticipation around eating it, which the speaker will describe in the next line.
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Lines 5-8
You ate that ...
... Picking.
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Lines 8-10
Then red ones ...
... bleached our boots. -
Lines 11-15
Round hayfields, cornfields ...
... plate of eyes. -
Lines 15-16
Our hands were ...
... sticky as Bluebeard's. -
Lines 17-21
We hoarded the ...
... would turn sour. -
Lines 22-24
I always felt ...
... they would not.
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“Blackberry-Picking” Symbols
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Blackberries
On one level, the blackberries in the poem represent both youth and the loss of that youth. The ripening of the blackberries described in lines 3-4 is representative of the maturing of a person and the physical development from childhood to adolescence. Just as the newly ripe blackberry's "flesh was sweet," this stage is when a person is still sweet and innocent, not yet damaged by the physical or emotional marks of aging and life's hardships. But the fact that the blackberries leave "stains upon the tongue" foreshadows the changes to come.
Then, the somewhat violent impact that the blackberries have on the blackberry pickers symbolizes the hardships that come with growing up and getting older. Life makes its mark on people as they come to see the disappointments and losses it brings. Similarly, the blackberries make their mark as their "briars scratched" the pickers' hands, leaving their hands "peppered / With thorn pricks."
Finally, the ultimate fate of the blackberries, the rotting described in the second stanza, speaks to the eventual impact of aging on a person. From a physical standpoint, human bodies inevitably deteriorate over time. The grotesque images of the rotting blackberries ("a fur / A rat-grey fungus", "The juice was stinking too", "The fruit fermented") represent this physical decline.
This is made especially clear with the phrase "the sweet flesh would turn sour." From a psychological standpoint, aging and the life experience it brings often leave people jaded and disillusioned. The imagery in the second stanza surrounding the blackberries' fermentation can also symbolize this aspect, particularly when considering the emotional impact the rotting berries have on the speaker. The speaker is left with the sight of disgusting fungus, with the smell of "stinking" juice, with the "sour" taste of spoiled flesh. As a result, the speaker "always felt like crying." The symbol of the blackberries thus reveals both the physical and emotional toll of growing older and losing youthful vitality and innocence.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 2-8: “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.”
- Line 10: “briars scratched”
- Lines 14-15: “green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned / Like a plate of eyes”
- Lines 15-16: “Our hands were peppered / With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.”
- Line 17: “the fresh berries”
- Line 19: “our cache”
- Line 20: “The juice”
- Line 21: “The fruit,” “ fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.”
- Lines 23-24: “all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. / Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.”
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Wine
The "thickened wine" and "summer's blood" referenced in Line 6 functions as a religious symbol and an allusion to the Christian tradition of celebrating Holy Communion. Given that the poem's author, Seamus Heaney, was Catholic, he would have been familiar with the tradition. According to tradition, at the Last Supper, Jesus gave his disciples bread, telling them "This is my body," and wine, telling them "This is my blood." The reference to the blackberry as having "flesh" in line 5 suggests the berry symbolizes Christ's body while its juice symbolizes his blood. The fact that the phrase "summer's blood" is used to describe the berry juice supports this reading.
Holy Communion functions as a memorial act through which participants recall Christ's words and actions on the night before he was crucified. Given that it is closely tied to his crucifixion, this symbol emphasizes an end point of life. Within the context of the poem, it represents the conclusion of a person's childhood. The symbolism is fitting in relation to the poem's overarching themes, especially when considering that Christ rose again following his crucifixion. Just as the end of childhood does not mark the end of a person's life, the crucifixion did not mark the end of Christ.
This subtle hint at Christ's story highlights the speaker's point that people carry on after the tumultuous process of growing up, even though adolescence and the loss of childhood innocence will inevitably leave its marks on them. The reference to "thorn pricks" in line 16 further supports a religious reading, as it can be seen as a reference to the crown of thorns Christ wore upon his crucifixion. The marks left on Christ's face as a result are sometimes shown in religious imagery. This is comparable to the thorn pricks on the hands of the blueberry pickers.
Leaving a religious interpretation aside, the reference to wine can also simply serve as a symbol of aging. Made from ripe, juicy grapes, wine is produced by fermenting grape juice. The substance itself requires aging, which again points to the inevitability of growing older and more complex.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 5: “its flesh was sweet”
- Line 6: “Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it”
- Lines 15-16: “ Our hands were peppered / With thorn pricks,”
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Bluebeard
The allusion to Bluebeard at the end of the first stanza punctuates the sense of foreboding that has been built up through the first 16 lines. Basically, Blackbeard symbolizes the children's lust and greed. Bluebeard was a man who murdered his wife. Using a simile ("palms sticky as Bluebeard's") to compare the hands of apparently innocent children to a murderer's is chilling. It serves to suggest that the blackberry pickers themselves aren't totally innocent. It's said a person "has blood on their hands" when they're guilty of something, and this is exactly how the children are described.
Indeed, in the next stanza, the children appear to be guilty of gluttony and greed. They picked way too many berries and can't even eat them all before they go bad. The fact that the children are described as having a "lust for / Picking" in lines 7-8 also suggests a sense of wrongdoing. Lust, greed, and gluttony are three of the seven deadly sins. Inserting the gruesome symbol of Bluebeard and using a comparative device to draw similarities to the children makes it clear they are not totally innocent, and hints that perhaps no one can truly remain innocent in the process of growing up.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 16: “Bluebeard's”
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“Blackberry-Picking” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Extended Metaphor
The entirety of "Blackberry-Picking" functions as an extended metaphor, unfolding and developing the poem's central comparison (of blackberry-picking to growing up and losing childhood innocence) across the poem's two stanzas. In the first lines, the berries ripening "For a full week" suggests impatience, much like the impatience of a little kid who wants to grow up and be able to do "adult" things like stay up late. These first five lines speak to childhood innocence, as is reflected by the fact that the newly ripe berry's "flesh was sweet" and unspoiled.
From line 7 onwards, however, the first stanza develops the metaphor of blackberry-picking in new directions, using almost violent language ("briars scratched" and "wet grass bleached") and vivid imagery to mirror the tumultuous process of growing up and transitioning from childhood to adolescence. The blackberries end up "Leaving stains" which can be seen as the marks of tough experiences people increasingly accumulate as they get older. However, people, especially younger people, still strive to collect more experiences, comparable to the children's "lust for / Picking." Younger people in particular are eager and less cautious about entering potentially painful situations, like falling in love and opening oneself up to the possibility of heartache. By the end of the first stanza, the children's hands are "peppered / With thorn pricks" and the experience of blackberry picking itself is concluded, indicating that the children may have reached a new stage of maturity.
The second stanza reflects the aftermath of such an experience, hinting at the way that many life experiences become marred by loss, disappointment, and difficulty. The berries rot (the experience sours) and despair ensues. This stanza points to the difficulty of accepting that hard experiences are simply a part of life and, in particular, of growth. The extended metaphor thus functions to display the entire cycle of a "growing" life experience, from the anticipation of the experience, to the challenges of the experience itself, and finally to the lasting marks these challenges leave behind.
The metaphor is carried through to the very end of the poem and plays one last important role with the final line: "Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not." The speaker is referencing the blackberries rotting and expressing a sad acceptance of the fact that they always do spoil. This can be compared to an adult kind of wisdom, namely the resignation older persons tend to develop regarding life's losses and disappointments. The more difficulties people experience, the poem suggests, the more resigned they become to such challenges. The metaphor reflects this by concluding with resignation and acceptance, sentiments that tend to only develop later in life, once the tough process of growing up is in the past.
Where extended metaphor appears in the poem:- Lines 1-24
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Assonance
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Imagery
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Simile
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Onomatopoeia
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Allusion
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Enjambment
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Caesura
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Antithesis
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“Blackberry-Picking” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Clot
- Thickened wine
- Potato-drills
- Tinkling
- Eyes
- Peppered
- Bluebeard
- Hoarded
- Byre
- Fur
- Glutting
- Cache
- Fermented
Clot-
(Location in poem: Line 3: “clot”)
A clot is like a lump, usually formed by a substance that sticks together. It can also refer to a mass of blood that has clotted and formed a coagulated mass. Describing the first ripe berry as a "clot" is in this sense quite visceral and gives a hint of the grotesque turn the poem will take. A blood clot can also result in fatal health complications, making this word choice even more ominous.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Blackberry-Picking”
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Form
"Blackberry-Picking" does not adhere to any formal guidelines in terms of stanzas or verses. It consists of two uneven stanzas, one 16 lines and the second 8 lines long. These two stanzas reflect the trajectory of the poem's narrative, distinguishing between childhood innocence and jaded adult wisdom. In the first stanza, the process of blackberry picking-reflects the process of growing up. In the second, the discovery of the rotten berries reflects the loss of childhood innocence and the disillusionment that adulthood brings, followed by the concluding adult acceptance of the fact that life is full of loss and disappointment. The break between the two stanzas highlights the contrast between these two distinct phases of human life.
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Meter
"Blackberry-Picking" starts with iambic pentameter, meaning that each line has five poetic feet in a da-DUM rhythm. The first line shows this steady meter:
Late Au- | gust, giv- | en hea- | vy rain | and sun
This meter mirrors the rhythmic turning of the seasons that is being introduced in the first line, as the last month of summer fades away to the fall.
There are variations to this regular meter throughout the poem, however. Line 21 marks a notable deviation:
The fruit | ferment- | ed, the | sweet flesh | would turn sour.
This line contains an instance of pyrrhic meter, consisting of two unstressed syllables within the same foot ("ed, the"). There is also a spondee, two hard stress syllables ("sweet flesh") as well as an anapest, two soft syllables followed by a strong one, at the very end of the line ("would turn sour"). These changes highlight that the steady innocence of the first stanza has been corrupted, just as the mold rots the blackberries.
In line 22, an anapest likewise occurs:
I al- | ways felt | like cry- | ing. It was- | n't fair
This metrical change connects the two distinct clauses while emphasizing the unfairness of the situation, since that foot gets an extra syllable.
The final line of the poem uses a trochee (stressed-unstressed), on "knew they":
Each year | I hoped | they'd keep, | knew they | would not.
A caesura (the comma) interrupts the iambic pattern, emphasizing the word "knew" and drawing attention to the ultimate takeaway of the speaker's blackberry-picking experience, namely an adult knowledge of the fact that life is full of let-downs.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Blackberry-Picking" follows a standard rhyme scheme of:
AABBCCDDEEFF
Not all of the rhymes are exact and some are half-rhymes or slant rhymes instead, as in "sun"/"ripen" in lines 1-2 and "byre"/"fur" in lines 17-18. This generally steady rhyme gives the poem a sing-song feel that matches its narrative of childhood exploration.
Additionally, notable repetition of rhyme is seen in lines 3-4:
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.and 23-24:
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.The repetition ties the end of the poem back to its beginning, and lends a sense of continuity to the entire narrative. By the end, the reader has similarly come full circle, witnessing the transition from hopeful child to jaded adult. This narrative also encompasses an emotional journey on the speaker's part. First, there is childish indignation in the form of tears. Then, there is adult resignation to the simple fact that loss is a part of life.
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“Blackberry-Picking” Speaker
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"Blackberry-Picking" provides an adult point of view on a childhood memory. The speaker is grown up and reflecting on the process of blackberry-picking, a seasonal event that the speaker experienced annually (every August) throughout the speaker's childhood. In describing the event and the disappointment it resulted in every year when the blackberries rotted, the speaker reveals a defining moment of childhood, the realization that life is marred by loss and accompanying disappointment. The speaker wants to convey the impact of this epiphany and suggests that it is only the beginning of the journey to "growing up" and realizing that life will hold many such disappointments (and usually on a much larger scale than spoiled blackberries).
By describing childhood disappointment from an adult's perspective, the speaker is further able to demonstrate an acceptance of the fact that life is filled with loss and disappointment. The speaker is no longer the child who "always felt like crying." The speaker is instead resigned to the bitter facts of loss and no longer holds the naive hope of the child who "hoped they'd keep, knew they would not."
There is no specification within the poem that the speaker is Seamus Heaney himself, or indeed any concrete information about the speaker's exact age, gender, or any other biographical information. That said, the epigraph could support such a reading. Some versions of the poem are dedicated to Philip Hobsbaum, a teacher of Heaney's at Queen's University, Belfast. A teacher is often a role model for a child and may impart life lessons as well as academic ones. The epigraph functions as a message to Hobsbaum, a signal that the speaker (Heaney) now understands what the adults in his life have long known when it comes to loss and disappointment.
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“Blackberry-Picking” Setting
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"Blackberry-Picking" describes a childhood memory set on a farm in the countryside. This is apparent from the references to "hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills" as well as the "byre" (a sort of barn or shed). The memory is not a one-time occurrence but rather describes an event that happened repeatedly, in "late August." The repetitive nature of the event, now encompassed in a single poem, is affirmed in the second stanza by the phrasing "I always felt like crying" and "Each year."
Although it is clear that the speaker is reflecting on the past and that the poem describes a memory, it is not clear where the speaker may be located in the present day.
Though the poem doesn't specifically identify Heaney himself as the speaker, it's possible to read the poem as an autobiographical account. In that case, the setting could in rural Ireland, where Heaney himself grew up on a farm. Given that Heaney was born in 1939, the setting would then be roughly the mid-20th century.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Blackberry-Picking”
Literary Context
"Blackberry-Picking" was first published in 1966, in the collection of poems Death of a Naturalist. Heaney's first major published volume, it helped the Irish poet, then living in Belfast, to gain international recognition. The volume won multiple awards, including the Somerset Maugham Award and a Cholmondeley Award. Like many of Heaney's earlier works, "Blackberry-Picking" is influenced by his rural upbringing in County Derry, Northern Ireland. He grew up a farmer's son.
Heaney's early influences include Robert Frost (1874-1963) who likewise dealt with topics and themes related to nature and the natural world, as well as the English romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821). In his 1995 Nobel Prize lecture, Heaney referred to Keats's "Ode to Autumn" as the "ark of the covenant between language and sensation." Especially given this poem's use of imagery and literary devices like onomatopoeia to convey a sensory experience of blackberry-picking, this comment speaks to Heaney's value of this mastery of language. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was another significant influence, about whom Heaney wrote the essays "Yeats as an Example?" (1978) and "A Tale of Two Islands: Reflections on the Irish Literary Revival" (1980).
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) was another of Heaney's early influences. According to Heaney's work, reading Kavanagh taught him that "nothing is trivial" and that seemingly insignificant, mundane occurrences (like picking blackberries) are just as important as larger, far-reaching themes. Michael McLaverty was another influence; Heaney took inspiration from the writer's lyrical, emotionally charged novels.
Heaney graduated from Queen's University, Belfast (QUB) in 1961 and had his first poems published in student magazines during this time. Upon the publication of Death of a Naturalist in 1966, he was in the same year appointed as an English lecturer at QUB. Death of a Naturalist additionally includes ideas introduced to Heaney through his participation in The Belfast Group, a writing workshop organized by Philip Hobsbaum, his teacher at QUB. Some versions of "Blackberry-Picking" are printed with an epigraph dedicating the poem to Hobsbaum.
Heaney is arguably the best-known poet of The Northern School, a group of Northern Irish poets that began to garner attention in the 1960s, coinciding with the rise of political and cultural unrest in that country. The 1960s were a period of tumultuous evolution in Ireland and in Irish literature. Government censorship of the past was challenged more actively. In 1960, for example, Edna O'Brien published the novel The Country Girls, which described the oppressive force of the Roman Catholic religion on women. The novel was banned and O'Brien left Ireland.
Historical Context
Heaney was born in Northern Ireland in 1939. He grew up in a time when Ireland was wracked by what would become "The Troubles" or the Northern Ireland conflict. The Troubles were a dispute from about 1968 (different sources mark different start dates) to 1998 between Protestant unionists, who wanted Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom, and Roman Catholic nationalists, who wanted Northern Ireland to join the Republic of Ireland. The struggle was often violent and more than 30,000 people were wounded and 3,600 killed in these decades.
The year "Blackberry-Picking" was published, Heaney was living in Belfast. The same year, the Ulster Volunteer Force, a unionist paramilitary group, was formed. In 1968, a civil rights march took place in Derry and in August of 1969, the Battle of Bogside occurred and British troops were deployed, escalating the violence. Heaney himself was Catholic and a nationalist who chose to live in the south of Ireland. Heaney was criticized for his failure to take explicit sides in the Troubles, but some of his writing did address the conflict (such as his books Wintering Out and North). "Blackberry-Picking" does not specifically address these events, but it perhaps hints at them through its themes of lost innocence and confronting difficult realities.
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More “Blackberry-Picking” Resources
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External Resources
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An Introduction to Holy Communion — "Blackberry-Picking" includes religious symbolism referencing the Christian tradition of Holy Communion. Learn about the history and significance of Holy Communion, also called the Eucharist or Lord's Supper.
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Seamus Heaney's 1995 Nobel Lecture — The author of "Blackberry-Picking" won the Nobel Prize in 1995. Read his speech upon the occasion, in which he references influences like John Keats.
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Obituary: Seamus Heaney — Read about the life of the poem's author.
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History of The Troubles in Ireland — Although "Blackberry-Picking" does not explicitly address the Troubles, these events were ongoing throughout Seamus Heaney's career. Other writings of his do speak to these events. Learn about the history.
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The Folktale of Bluebeard — "Blackberry-Picking" makes an allusion to Bluebeard, a folktale about a man who kills his wives one after the other. Read the tale.
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An Introduction to the Belfast Group — Learn more about The Belfast Group, which informed a new generation of writers in Northern Ireland, including Seamus Heaney.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Seamus Heaney
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