Analysis Of Blackberry Eating By Galway Kinnell

Adults teach children through songs and in the poem “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell that is exactly what the speaker is doing. The speaker of the poem is teaching the reader his love of words by comparing them to his love of blackberries. Kinnell utilizes this through several musical devices such as onomatopoeia, repetition, and alliteration. Onomatopoeia is used in the line “the stalks very prickly, a penalty” to show the harsh vines the blackberries grow on and the painful experience it can be to pull them off—a harsh consequence for the splendid fruit. This compares to the struggle it can be to find the right word, but when the perfect word is inserted into a sentence it soars. Another example is in the line “which I squeeze, squelch open, and splurge well”, this line exemplifies the bursting taste of blackberries just as words burst from vocabularies to fill a conversation. The repetition in the poem emphasizes the speaker’s meaning. The month of September is mentioned both in the first line and in the last line. September is a peaceful and tranquil month because it is the beginning of fall and there isn’t any harsh weather. This emphasizes the authors delightful love of both

The alliteration within this poem is intense. It starts from the very beginning with “black, blackberries” , continues with “blackberries, breakfast”, “prickly, penalty”, “strength, squinted”, and ends with “squeeze, squelch, splurge.” The alliteration keeps the flow of the poem and keeps a rhyming tone without actually rhyming—a quality many songs possess. The alliteration is also a memorization tool and keeps it’s message memorable and meaningful. Alliteration is an accessory to words and therefore by using it numerously in the poem expresses the importance of words and how people use