Blackberry Eating

“Blackberry Eating” is a short lyric poem organized into an unrhymed Petrarchan sonnet. There is a light turn after the eighth line of the poem, so the poem can be divided into two sections within the one-stanza structure.

The first section of the poem focuses primarily on the physical act of picking blackberries, which is something the speaker greatly enjoys: “I love to go out in late September” (Line 1). This confession follows a slight twist on the traditional use of sonnets as love poems. In this case, the speaker loves the way that the berries taste in early autumn: “fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries” (Line 2) after they have grown all summer and become full, slightly mushy, and ripened to the proper color to eat. Because he goes out in the morning, the berries are also chilled by the autumn air. He goes out with one purpose: “to eat blackberries for breakfast” (Line 3). The speaker does not gather the blackberries to bring back and serve with other food; instead, he forages only what he can eat directly from the plant. This image shows a care for the wild blackberry plants, for his neighbors who may want to share the berries, and for the non-human animals that rely on the berries for sustenance.