In Seamus Heaney's poem, "Blackberry-Picking," the writer's diction, imagery, and structure emphasize the speaker's intense emotional attachment to the blackberry-picking season. In addition, these literary devices serve to convey the speaker's feeling that the blackberries are symbolic of the cycle of life; and that he as an individual feels helpless against this process.
             The writer's intense tone is established primarily through the use of his diction. Descriptions such as "heavy rain," "purple clot," and "hard as a knot" illustrate the speaker's strong emotion towards the picking season; as if he anticipates this event for the entire year preceding. The imagery that follows, "it's flesh was sweet like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it," also conveys the author's tone as well as shows the speaker's feelings that the berries are more than just a fruit; they are a life of their own that come alive with the beginning of summer. The fruit blooming parallels the speaker's birth because it seems that he comes alive with the dawn of summer, "leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for picking."
             Throughout the first section the author continues to display the emotions that go through the speaker when he picks blackberries. The man would do anything to make the most of the limited time the blackberries can be picked; "sent us out with milk cans pea tins, jam pots...where briars scratched...we trekked and picked." These descriptions help to show the writer's parallel between the blackberries and human life, because one must make the most of the short time he has.
             Towards the end of the first section, and the beginning of the second, the writer's tone begins to shift. The diction becomes slightly more harsh, and he uses diction such as "pricks," "hoarded
             ...