is able to imagine the taste of blackberries and
feel their texture as the speaker describes squeez-
ing them slightly. The reader can imagine the
blackberry juices running into the hand of the
speaker and can visualize the juice stains on his
fingers. The reader can even appreciate the cold-
ness of the fruit as the blackberries drop into the
speaker’s mouth. These nature images create a
way for readers to connect with the immediate,
felt world described in the poem. Nature in this
poem is idealized: The thorny stalks prick the
berries but not the man standing in the middle of
the blackberry bramble.
Some readers fault the speaker here for pro-
jecting onto the plants something in the psyche
of the one who appreciates them. For example,
Keith Sagar argues in the ‘‘Forward’’ to his book
Literature and the Crime Against Naturethat
literature often deals with man’s relationship to
the ‘‘non-human powers he perceives as operat-
ing in the world.’’ Sagar points out that all mir-
rors held up to nature distort it. Sagar claims
that images of nature are ‘‘partly descriptions of
the contents of the writer’s own psyche projected
onto the receptive face of nature.’’ It is this pro-
jection and the interaction between man and
nature that becomes the stuff of the nature
poet, who seeks to unite the ‘‘inner and outer’’
world—the world of the poet’s psyche and the
world of nature. Poetry uses words to create
meaning; the meaning of the poem is partially
determined by the images that the poet creates
with his word choice. Kinnell probably hoped
that this poem would give readers a felt experi-
ence of the blackberry patch.
The images in ‘‘Blackberry Eating’’ do more
than bring blackberries into sharp focus. These
images are reminders that blackberry season sig-
nals the end of summer and the beginning of fall.
The fall harvest marks the time to prepare for
winter, but the passing of each season is also a
reminder of transience, of the importance of
each finite moment. Change is in the air. The
cold berries are the result of colder nights. In
line 13, the poet describes the verse he creates
standing amid the blackberries. He uses words
that recall images of winter, with its silent, icy
cold darkness. These words are a reminder that
winter is approaching. Time is passing and with
the passage of time, the world also changes.
When Kinnell was writing ‘‘Blackberry Eat-
ing,’’ the world was in turmoil. The 1970s were
years of protest and demonstrations. Escape into
nature, with its abundance and peace, provides a
welcome distraction from a human world in con-
flict. Henry David Thoreau explains in Wild
Fruitsthat the value to be found in wild fruits is
not only in the possessing and eating, ‘‘but in the
sight and enjoyment of them.’’ The act of picking
and eating fruit, while standing in the blackberry
patch, as speaker describes himself doing in line 6
of ‘‘Blackberry Eating,’’ is exactly what Thoreau
had in mind. The speaker is not buying black-
berries at the market; he is immersing himself in
the blackberries, consuming his breakfast in the
middle of a bramble and not at a kitchen table.
Thoreau claims that it is the degree of enthusiasm
for ‘‘going a-berrying’’ that makes a difference.
This enthusiasm is evident in Kinnell’s descrip-
tion of this experience. As Kinnell describes it in
this poem, the speaker is living Thoreau’s claim
that it is ‘‘the spirit’’ with which a man approaches
the activity that makes it worthwhile. Thoreau,
then, would have been pleased with Kinnell’s
appreciation of blackberry picking and the imme-
diate consumption of blackberries in ‘‘Blackberry
Eating.’’
The power of Kinnell’s imagery is that it can
create a vivid picture of nature. Kristie S. Fleck-
enstein argues in her essay, ‘‘Words Made Flesh:
Fusing Imagery and Language in a Polymorphic
Literacy,’’ that images do not just exist. Instead,
‘‘an image evolves when we shape a reality based
on the logic of analogy.’’ Thus, readers create
meaning from the imagery that the poet creates.
Fleckenstein maintains that readers shape poetic
images based on connections with which they are
familiar. In other words, once the reader grasps
the connection between eating blackberries and
mouthing language into verse, the poem takes on
a different meaning. According to Fleckenstein,
readers ‘‘do not merely shape and experience a
simple visual image, whether mental or graphic
or verbal.’’ Instead, ‘‘visuality is permeated with
an array of other senses, such as texture, sound,
smell, and feeling.’’ This is especially evident inART AND NATURE PROVIDE A NATURALPAIRING FOR KINNELL, WHO USES NATURE AS A
METAPHOR FOR CREATIVITY IN THIS POEM.’’
Blackberry Eating