Blackberry-Picking

Mr. Nature. Sure, Heaney's not the first to do it (the natural world was huge for centuries before this Irishman came along), but for poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, he's certainly spearheading the campaign to keep dirt, mold, and all things earthy alive and well in our poetry. And boy does he do it well! Heaney's really big on making sure we experience the earth with all of our senses. In this poem, instead of only telling us that the berries are growing a little mold fuzz, he also includes the rank smell of the juice.