I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry — eating in late September.
i like the poem i’m in english reading it but i swear it sounds like a sex story
i like the poem i’m in english reading it but i swear it sounds like a sex story
I love this poem! I am in English class right now having to read it for a WebQuest! Go Mrs. Campese. Haha.
splurge it well
For the pure joy of saying a poem aloud, no poem I’ve read compares to this one. Kinnell has really hit the musical nail on the head here.