Showing posts with label "Blackberry Eating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Blackberry Eating. Show all posts

Sep 18, 2009

Poem for a Day: "Blackberry Eating" by Galway Kinnell



Once I heard the comment, “Poetry is where our wildness is.” So . . . not in war, then? Not in skydiving? Or even golf?

But that guy was talking about babies babbling in their cribs, their fascination with their own voices and sounds. “Look what I can do.” Or, “What was that? Oh, that was me, making noise.”

Old or new, some poems make more than others of the babble, the music, in language. Be sure to read this one aloud—slowly. If you dare, lie on the floor, on your back, and play with your toes.

As the poem’s speaker eats berries (or are they poems?), you might hear his primitive, sensuous babbling, replete with short a and bl sounds—until the sibilance breaks in toward the end and declares war, only to lose quickly, surrendering again to bl and short a. This whole business is much wilder than skydiving and causes fewer casualties than war.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/blackberry-eating/

Lovers' Lane