Reflection On Blackberry Eating

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April Kolbush Kolbush 1 Professor Robert P. Arthur English 112 29 October, 2010 A Reflection on “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell A smoothie of the poet’s appetite for words and the blackberries themselves are depicted in the poem “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell. The poet wallows in the beauty of language and indulgences. He is as attracted to the ripe, dark richness of the blackberries as he is to words. A unique language is developed in the poem as it progresses through the fourteen lines of imagery. You can see how the Kinnell likes to play with words because the use of alliteration. The impact of the consonants “B” and the “S” invite you to taste, touch and sample the berries for yourself. The sound of the blackberry language also draws the reader in to the imagery. Without the use of rhyme or meter the special language still impacts all of the reader’s senses. The sounds from the repeated consonants almost roll around in the mouth like a blackberry would. The speaker compares words to a blackberry when he says "many-lettered, one-syllable lumps". Tiny bubbles clumped together make up one clump of this fruit. The language of the poem could be described as squishy and tantalizing like the texture and flavors of the fruit. The poem ends the same way it Kolbush 2 opens with the line "in late September "which makes the poem round like the fruit. Blackberries are so indulgent, almost a forbidden fruit. In fact, if words are knowledge, then eating blackberries is very much like eating from the tree of Knowledge. Yet there are

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