Blackberry Eating by Galway Kinnell

Reading "Blackberry Eating", I noticed a certain amount of imagery that almost requires the reader to involve themselves into the text. Galway Kinnell is simply explaining how much he loves everything about blackberries. However, it is not just blackberries he is in love with. He also loves words. The blackberries he loves so much, symbolizes how he feels words are so unique and full of taste. "..the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched" (7-10). Kinnell compares the ripest berries to strange words like strengths or squinched. A word as funny as squinched is so hard for Kinnell to explain he has to compare it to something relate-able, like a truly ripe blackberry. "I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy black blackberries" (1-2). Just the way he describes these fruits is enough to depict a vivid image inside the reader's mind. However,  he also evokes the sense of touch and taste when Kinnell "squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy black language" (12-13). He describes the blackberries so well, it's like the reader can almost taste and feel the squished blackberries inside their mouths. I believe Kinnell cannot express how greatly he feels about words, so he gives an extraordinary description of a simple activity to help us realize his vision.