In both poems “ Blackberry Picking” by Seamus Heaney and “After Apple Picking” by Robert Frost, the luxury of picking fruit could be related to a much deeper meaning than just the simple and boring concept. Using literary devices, both poets achieved to portray memorable moments in their life, or in the other case, even death by using hyperbole, imagery, and simile. Firstly by using hyperbole in lines 28- 29 “For I have had too much of apple picking: I am overtired of the great harvest I myself desired”, Frost exaggerates how exhausted he is from “apple-picking” and had done more than he expected to do with his life. In contrast, Heaney uses hyperbole to grab the reader’s interest by reminiscing his childish infatuations of preserving blackberries
Poetry is a part of literature that writers used to inform, educate, warn, or entertain the society. Although the field has developed over the years, the authenticity of poetry remains in its ability to produce a meaning using metaphors and allusions. In most cases, poems are a puzzle that the reader has to solve by applying rhetoric analysis to extract the meaning. Accordingly, poems are interesting pieces that activate the mind and explore the reader’s critical and analytical skills. In the poem “There are Delicacies,” Earle Birney utilizes a figurative language to express the theme and perfect the poem. Specifically, the poem addresses the frangibility of the human life by equating it to the flimsy of a watch. Precisely, the poet argues that a human life is short, and, therefore, everyone should complete his duties in perfection because once he or she dies, the chance is unavailable forever.
Tone, symbolism, and imagery are all fantastic ways to view and examine literary works at diverse levels. Using the right lens to study a work can give it a completely different meaning and can lend itself to instill a different lesson than was originally understood. In one work, a rose is thought of as being a discontent and as tool to show the speaker’s true feelings on what love means to her. In another, the simple sight of some commoners forces the speaker to long for a life free of the constraints of a forced marriage, making her yearn for a life of freedom and being normal. Both works use multiple literary techniques to lend themselves too many different elucidations, which makes them such prominent literary gems.
The nature of the wife’s interaction with the berries solidifies this metaphor. She puts them “in her mouth” (13), and “Bends or straightens” (5) repeatedly to each bush, while they “taste good to her” (15). These actions aid in demonstrating the flirtation and sexual imagery that exists between the wife and the berries. Moreover, the jealousy the speaker has towards the berries, as well as the wife’s love for the berries over him, further strengthens this metaphor of another man with the speaker’s wife. Another way Layton shows the negative effects of the natural world on the relationship is by using diction, the “word choice” (p.1488) in the poem, to link and distance specific individuals or objects in the poem. The speaker describes the berries as lying “easily” (17), which connects them to the wife’s “easy soul” (21). Similarly, he describes the wife as having “quiet hands” (7), which connects her with the silent berries and the “quiet summer” (7). Additionally, the natural berries are “unoffending” (18), which presents a contrast between them and the husband, who is “vex[ing]” (9), “perplex[ing]” (9) and “barbarous” (16). Finally, Layton utilizes the rhyme scheme of the poem to mirror
Use of Diction, Imagery and Metaphor in Seamus Heaney’s Poem, Blackberry-Picking Seamus Heaney’s poem “Blackberry-Picking” does not merely describe a child’s summer activity of collecting berries for amusement. Rather, it details a stronger motivation, ruled by a more primal urge, guised as a fanciful experience of childhood and its many lessons. This is shown through Heaney’s use of language in the poem, including vibrant diction, intense imagery and powerful metaphor—an uncommon mix coming from a child’s perspective. Heaney emphasizes the importance of the experience of Blackberry picking by using diction that relates to sensory imagery and human urges.
In the poem, Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heany, the author takes the reader back to the 1940’s in Northern Ireland where he experienced his childhood. The poem seems deceivingly simple about picking blackberries during the summertime. However, the poem demonstrates a deeper meaning. The author relates his childhood memories to the harsh reality of life. In the poem Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heany, the author uses extended metaphor, contrast, similes, and a shift in point of view in order to examine that as one grows and learns, innocence is lost.
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
The concepts of self and reality are running themes in recent eras of poetry, and these themes are all too often associated with ideas of meaninglessness. In Larry Levis’s, “Some Grass Along a Ditch Bank” (1985), the writer brings in these different themes as the narrator contemplates grass around a farm and its relationship with the world around it. The poem is set in the farm setting that is so common in the works of Levis, and the ideas he explores about grass can easily be transferred to, or symbolic of, the ideas that the poet may have shared concerning relationships between people. Despite these connections and the deeper meaning of the poem, however, critics read this and other poems as having primarily nihilistic themes. This and other of his poems have been read as being, “bravely and madly about all-living-and-all-dying” (Halliday 92). Death and life are themes in Levis’s poem and do appear in this one, but nihilism requires that the artist also explores a general lack of meaning. Instead, reading this particular poem while considering its relation to the self and relationships, demonstrates that Levis’s focus is more on the general concept of the isolate, meaning that he writes about the lack of the individual’s ability to come to establish understanding between people, rather than a complete lack of meaning in life.
In Galway Kinnell’s poem, “Blackberry Eating,” assonance, alliteration, and refrain are used in reinforcing the poem’s meaning that just like the speaker’s interest for “ripest” blackberries as described throughout the poem, words are also rich and intense, thus one is eating straight from the tree of knowledge.
The poet conveys his attitude toward the character in a detached manner, seeing as the poem is not written in the perspective of the character or someone close to him. The speaker details the actions of the character in a sympathetic, respectful tone, but the choice of actions that the poet chooses to include seem to mock him. Perhaps most representative of this assertion is the choice to make the first word of both the novel and the poem “Cabbage,” immediately indicating that the novel the character has waited years to write will likely not be of good quality (1). Additionally, the poet uses the simile “a trophy pen, / like a trophy wife,” describing the pen that would play such an integral role in writing the novel with a negative connotation (2-3). The repetition of the phrase “not cheap” suggests that the extensive amount of resources the character has invested in the creation of his novel may have simply been a waste. Additionally, the detail that the character “dreamed in free moments at his office” and “excitingly” began writing is undercut by the first word being “cabbage” (17-21). In the event that the first word was more mellow, the tone of the poet would be very similar to that of the speaker. However, the choices in detail as well as the use of specific literary devices keep the tone of the poet and the tone of the speaker on two different
Heaney’s “Death of a Naturalist” talks of a moment in Heaney’s childhood, however is metaphorical for aging and the loss of innocence. Heaney uses the first stanza to tell the reader of his memories of the flax dams as being somewhat wonderful by using colloquial language “Best of all was the warm thick slobber” to sound enthusiastic about that particular moment in time. The list of three “warm, thick slobber” is highly onomatopoeic, conseq...
Once the reader can passes up the surface meaning of the poem Blackberry-Picking, by Seamus Heaney, past the emotional switch from sheer joy to utter disappointment, past the childhood memories, the underlying meaning can be quite disturbing. Hidden deep within the happy-go-lucky rifts of childhood is a disturbing tale of greed and murder. Seamus Heaney, through clever diction, ghastly imagery, misguided metaphors and abruptly changing forms, ingeniously tells the tale that is understood and rarely spoken aloud.
The author, to entirely convey Jonas’s view of the world in his imagination and the origin of his strong desires, employs vivid, colorful, extensive descriptions of the beauty and horror instigated by nature and freedom. A few of the exemplary integrations of imagery, which paint lush mental images, as written by Lois Lowry, include, “Looking through the front window, he had seen no people: none of the busy afternoon crew of Street Cleaners, Landscape Workers, and Food Delivery people who usually populated the community at that time of day. He saw only the abandoned bikes here and there on their sides; an upturned wheel on one was still revolving slowly.” (p.15), “Soon there were many birds along the way, soaring overhead, calling. They saw deer; and once, beside the road, looking at them curious and unafraid, a small reddish brown creature with a thick tail, whose name Jonas did not know. He slowed the bike and they stared at one another until the creature turned away and disappeared into the woods.” (p.230), “…banquets with huge roasted meats; birthday parties with thick-frosted cakes; and lush fruits picked and eaten, sun-warmed and dripping, from trees.” (p.232). Through such instances of imagery, the author is able to convey and inspire the reader through vivid, emotion-evoking mental
death is of the way the poet feels about the frogs. In the first verse
“This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams, a twenty-niece word poem that uses simple, clear and precise language to express author’s true though and feeling of actual eating the plums, gives the readers an illusion that the author puts some deeper meaning and metaphor into the poem. The words: “plums”, “Forgive me” and “So sweet and so cold”, in which somehow the readers misread those words and link to the biblical tale. Instead of focusing on the rhythm, rule and restriction of the poetry, In “This Is Just To Say” William demonstrates that a poem can be written about what ought to be, feel and think on a single pleasure of life.
The meaning of life is a question that has been attempted to be answered using many forms of the written word. Poetry is one such form that is especially effective in tackling this enigmatic subject. Being able to deliver a meaningful message in a matter of a few lines truly exemplifies how the power of poetry can transcend the human imagination. Robert Frost is one poet who keenly uses both figurative and literal language to create a poem that expresses a love of life—however painful it may be at times—while celebrating the communion between man and nature. Upon first reading his poem “Birches,” we may be inclined to think that it is a simple story about a young boy swinging from the branches of birch trees; but this