the first 8 lines of Kinnell’s sonnet. In the
description of the size, shape, texture, temper-
ature, and color of the blackberries, the black-
berries are brought to life, and the reader
experiences what the poet has experienced. The
poem has more power because of the image that
the poet creates when he links blackberries to the
creation of poetry, but much of the verse’s initial
power is in the descriptive imagery contained
within the octave. Once again it is the reader’s
interpretation of that imagery that infuses the
poem with meaning. Because poetry requires
the reader to seek meaning and work for under-
standing, readers often assume that poetry is just
too difficult to read. Prose ends up being the
more privileged literature. Many readers think
that novels and short stories are clearer, easier to
understand, and less work. According to Fleck-
enstein, ‘‘historically, language has overshad-
owed image, preventing us from recognizing
the essential role of imagery in meaning.’’ If
readers grasp the purpose of the imagery in the
poem and privilege the poet’s creativity, they
emerge from a reading of ‘‘Blackberry Eating’’
having experienced nature and poetry.
In line 9, Kinnell shifts to more abstract
images. The blackberries are transformed into
syllables, words, sentences, and finally poetry—
all of it associated with the creative force asso-
ciated with nature and poetry. This is the power
of nature for Kinnell, which feeds him and his
poetry. In his essay, ‘‘A Reading of Galway Kin-
nell,’’ Ralph J. Mills Jr. argues that Kinnell is
drawn to the natural world in his poetry because
nature provides Kinnell with an ‘‘inexhaustible
store for his imaginative meditation.’’ According
to Mills, ‘‘imaginative meditation’’ describes the
kind of thinking that Kinnell does that works
‘‘through images and particulars,’’ that are ‘‘inte-
gral to the poetic act.’’ Kinnell creates poetry
that flows from one image to the next as a way
to depict internalized experiences. Mills claims
that in some of his poetry, Kinnell’s ‘‘desire to
articulate what the poet sees, hears, thinks, and
dreams with undeviating accuracy’’ is what
makes him work to compress language and cre-
ate imagery that is ‘‘sharp, spare, precise and is
set down with an admirable directness that
enhances the effect of lyrical poetry.’’ As Mills
maintains, Kinnell finds an affiliation with
nature and the non-human world ‘‘as the basic
context for man’s living...inwhichother forms
of life manifest their being together with him.’’
This is especially evident in ‘‘Blackberry Eating’’
when poet and nature merge to create poetry.
Why use blackberries to carry the weight of
the poet’s creativity? It is clear that blackberries
connect Kinnell to nature, which in turn, feeds
his creative self. In her essay, ‘‘Approaching
Home Ground: Galway Kinnell’sMortal Acts,
Mortal Words,’’ Lorrie Goldensohn observes
that ‘‘Within the objects of Kinnell’s language,
there is an insistence on the ordinary object as
the right carrier for meaning; as if more exalted
objects could only blur or distort the precise
fitting, the exact adjustment of language to real-
ity.’’ In other words, while blackberries may
appear to be a perfectly ordinary object, in Kin-
nell’s hands, they are transformed into so much
more. After all, as Kinnell writes in ‘‘Blackberry
Eating,’’ his blackberries possess magic.
Source:Sheri Metzger Karmiol, Critical Essay on ‘‘Black-
berry Eating,’’ inPoetry for Students, Gale, Cengage
Learning, 2010.Lorrie Goldensohn
In the following excerpt, Goldensohn, in the process
of reviewing Galway Kinnell’sMortal Acts, Mor-
tal Words,discusses the poet’s use of everyday
relationships to explore transcendental themes.
In a 1975 interview with theColorado State
Review,Galway Kinnell signalled the turn of his
subjects to private or domestic event when he
said: ‘‘My circumstances are such that I live
most of my life rather busily in the midst of the
daily and ordinary... whatever my poetry will
be, from now on it will no doubt come out of this
involvement in the ordinary.’’ A little bald; more
than a little uncompromising in its avoidance of
anything that could smack of a hankering after
the sublime, or the titanic. Yet from within new
subjects, the best of Kinnell’s poems remain alert
to ‘‘The moment / in the late night,’’ as in ‘‘The
Poem’’ (1968), when:... objects
on the page grow suddenly
heavy, hugged
by a rush of strange gravity.
Language, inMortal Acts, Mortal Words
(1980), is still the negotiation between flesh and
spirit, making up the tracks that spirit lays down
in the flesh of the word. Or, looks for that curi-
ous double moment when language flashes out
to the quick of things, only to show in another
and reciprocal pulsation how things themselves
exist as a language....
Blackberry Eating