In the poem Blackberries for Amelia, author Richard Wilbur paints a rustic and mellow portrait of an unnamed character harvesting wild blackberries. The diction is sharp and descriptive, with the usage of words such as “savage,” “spur,” “brambled,” “bolt,” and “ripen.” This lends to Wilbur’s heady descriptions of the blackberries, the most important symbols in the poem. The imagery is rich, going so far as to even describe the berries as “savagely sweet,” and writes extensively on the wild tangles and vines of the blackberry bushes. Wilbur describes this cluster of blackberry bushes vividly, commenting on the “brambled” light, the “chalky white flowers, with blooms of five.” It is my belief that Wilbur is using these wild blackberries as a
