The Heaney within: buried under a bogSeamus Heaney is one of the most profound and influential writers in Irish history. His poetry consisted primarily, at first, of events from his childhood through his early adult years, highlighting the maturation process of this age period. His poetry changed during the Northern Ireland Troubles, the Irish civil rights movement which included terrorism by the Irish Republican Army in order to achieve emancipation from Great Britain, which took on a darker tone and had an inner conflict between inherent freedoms and the pressure to express. social needs of people. With this he wrote about Irish history and the Troubles of Northern Ireland while incorporating nature, particularly peat bogs, in Heaney's poem "Blackberry Picking", the narrator describes blackberries as being sweet, so he gathered as many as he could find and stored them. He then expresses that "it wasn't fair that all the pretty cans smelled like rot." Every year I hoped they would keep, but I knew they wouldn't” (Blackberry Picking). Heaney wrote this based on his own experiences picking blackberries, where he realizes that time transforms the once-sweet juice of the berries into something vile. Visual imagery is used as an element to vividly depict the deterioration of nature and explain that over time, things that seem so beautiful and vibrant eventually turn to dust. The blackberries symbolize the innocence of the narrator, or in this case Heaney, as he comes to the honest conclusion that death is inevitable and that nothing, especially blackberries, lasts forever; making every moment so precious since time is relentless. Heaney describes the narrator in “Death of a Naturalist” as happy and enthusiastic about taking frog spawn until “angry frogs invade the flax dam; [he] crept through the hedges until he heard a coarse croaking that [he] had never heard before” (Death of a Naturalist). The use of alliteration in the "rude croaks" depicts the "angry frogs" who express their deep dislike for the boy, or narrator, who continues to collect frog egg "jams." Since the narrator is Heaney, the In "Bog Queen", the Bog Queen states that "the braid of my hair, a slimy cord of bog, had been cut and I rose from the darkness, from severed bones, from skulls , frayed stitches. , tufts, little lights on the bank” (Bog Queen). The Bog Queen, who represents Northern Ireland, evokes her quest for revenge against Britain for exploiting her, symbolizing her unnatural removal from the land. The violent images described were Heaney's way of showing Northern Ireland's ferocity for independence and redemption after many years of involuntary slavery; furthermore, he wants the features of the Bog Queen/Ireland to be left alone by the British leaving nature alone. In Punishment, the narrator, Heaney, says while looking at one of the bodies discovered in the bogs: "I who stood silent when your treasonous sisters, caulked in tar, wept by the gates, who wallowed in civilized indignation while understanding the exact tribal, intimate revenge” (Punishment). Heaney expresses his sorrow at the innocent victims of the crimes committed by the tribal men, representing the Irish Republican Army, who both committed similar acts of brutality, even with large separations between the.