“Blackberry Eating”, Galway Kinnell In the story “Blackberry Eating”, Galway Kinnell compares the beloved past time of eating berries with his love of expressing language in verbal communication. He uses the sound devices to develop how he enriches his poem to show his love of language and words. He uses alliteration to give meaning and depth to words. Kinnell also uses consonance heavily in this poem to lead the reader through the poem. He uses cacophony to slow down the reader to deliver emphasis on certain words.
The title starts off with a cacophonic phrase. “Blackberry Eating” starts off rolling off your tongue with the first word. Then you encounter “Eating”, this word breaks up the flow of the title. This stops the reader and makes them assess the action that is occurring with the berries. In the phrase, “the stalks very prickly, a penalty” you stop and restart. You are led back to prickly with the word penalty. You get the understanding that the thorns are a punishment to the reader for enjoying the forbidden meal derived of the “black art of blackberry-making”. Another example of cacophany is the use of the letter B in the poem. The use of black, blackberries, breakfast provide a bounty of bold words that give a movement to the work that is very melodic.
Alliteration is used throughout the poem to create a slippery, smooth progression of the poem. When he says “black blackberries” it describes the richness and ripeness of the fruit. Another example is “silent, startled”, here the alliteration in the phrase provides emphasis on the shifting of the imagery from berries to language.
In the poem Kinnell uses consonance when he tells us that the berries fall “to my tongue”. This compares the berries that he is consuming to the words that are born on the tip of his tongue. This is a metaphor between the fruit and his love of words. Another use of consonance phrases is “ like strengths or squinched, many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps, with I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled/in late September.” In this phrase the letter S gives the poem a smooth and connected flow to the poem. The symbolic imagery that occurs in this statement of the words that are formed and articulated to berries that ripen and are plucked and consumed.
In this poem Kinnell is a man that compares his love for overripe berries to the love of over indulgent words. He compares the cluster of berries to “many-lettered, one syllabled lumps”. The berries represent his fondness for and eagerness to use rich language, even if it may prick himself by doing so.
