Seamus Heaney’s Blackberry Picking” is a poem about the speaker’s childhood experience of picking blackberries and the inevitable realization that life is full of disappointment and loss. The speaker remembers the summer days when he and his friends would go blackberry picking, and how they would fill their mouths with the sweet berries until they were “purple-stained and sticky-fingered.” However, the speaker also remembers that the berries would often be overripe and sour, and that the picking would sometimes be cut short by rain. The speaker reflects on how the berries symbolized the transience of youth and the inevitability of adulthood. The poem ends with the speaker realizing that, despite the disappointments of life, the memories of picking blackberries will always be sweet.”
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