Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney: Poetry Analysis

Note: This is not part of my official AP blog portfolio; it's simply an attempt to stay on top of my goals. Fellow students, feel free to comment, add to, or disagree with my analysis. This poem was the Poetry Foundation's Poem of the Day for Thursday, August 28th.

Blackberry-Picking
By Seamus Heaney

for Philip Hobsbaum

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.

--

Same poem, now with my annotations and analysis:

Blackberry-Picking
By Seamus Heaney

for Philip Hobsbaum

Late August time reference, 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 lush, sensuous word choice wine: summer's blood visceral was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for cleverly used enjambment 
Picking. Then red evokes passion and love and sensuality 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. blueberry-picking is hard work

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 blackberries were ruined
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. stark imagery
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. deeper meaning/message?
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. Hope is futile