Metaphor and Imagery in Galway Kinnells Poem, Blackberry Eating Essay

The Use of Metaphor and Imagery in Galway Kinnells Poem, blackberry bush EatingWritten in 1980, Galway Kinnells Blackberry Eating is a poem which creates a strong metaphoric relationship in the midst of the tangible objects of blackberries, and the intangible objects of words. The talker of the poem feels a strong draw to the sensory characteristics (the touch, taste, and look) of blackberries. The attraction he feels at the beginning of the poem exclusively for blackberries is paralleled in the end by his appetite and attraction to words. The rush the speaker gets surface on of blackberry eating is paralleled to the enjoyment he finds in thinking about certain words words which call up the same sensory images the blackberries embody. passim the fourteen lines of the poem, the imagery of the blackberries, as well as the speakers ardor for them is explored. In the final lines of the poem, the speaker reveals the connection between the imagery of the blackberries and the image ry that is created by words. The blackberries befit the existing tangible reality of the way the speaker views words. The author savors the taste of the blackberries in his mouth in much the same way as he savors the sound of certain words on his tongue. In the first line of the poem the speaker states his fondness for going out to eat blackberries. I cognise to go out in late September... This line makes it clear that the speaker goes out voluntarily because of his desire to eat the blackberries. In the next line, the speaker describes the blackberries in vivid imagery. among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries. This description of the blackberries does not leave the reader to wonder about how the blackberries look or taste. The re... ...he metaphor he has created between the two objects. This allusion is notwithstanding strengthened in the last line of the poem when the writer says of blackberry eating in late September. The ending of the poem now echoes the b eginning. The poem has come full-circle and the correlation between the sensory experience of blackberry eating and the auditory pleasure of words has been made. Blackberry Eating is metaphorical poem about the similarities between the congenial experience of picking and eating tasty blackberries and the auditory enjoyment of hearing the sound of certain words. Both the blackberries and the words provide a pleasurable sensory experience that the speaker collapses together and relates to in the same manner. Blackberry eating becomes a tangible experience that is used to depict the way the speaker intuitively reacts to certain words.