Analysis

This can be linked closely with Blackberry-Picking as: It shows the harshness of nature It shows the good side of nature It shows Heaney as a child

There is a sense of decay at the start of the poem with the rotting ‘flax’ and a sense of oppressive heat ‘daily it sweltered there’ all together creating an unpleasant feeling.

The sun seems like an oppressive leader ‘punishing sun’ inflicting pain on all beneath it. The onomatopoeia of ‘bubbles gargled delicately’ creates a calm image, where everything moves slowly due to the heat.

The blue bottles are attracted to the smell of the rot, adding to the unpleasant picture. Added to this is the key of the poem, the frogspawn which is described in a more favourable manner to reflect Heaney’s fascination with it, as a child. At school he would display his bottles full of tadpoles.

There is child-like language used by Heaney to describe Miss Walls, presumably a primary school teacher, telling the children the facts of life in an appropriate manner: ‘how the daddy frog was called a bullfrog and how he croaked …’ There is also a reference to how the frogs help tell the weather, like an old childish tale.

The second stanza deals with the harsh side of nature again, on a day with rank fields smelling of ‘cowdung’. Here the ‘angry frogs’ seem a threat and certainly not the pleasant ‘daddy’ and ‘mummy’ of stanza one. Nature has a dark side, with the frogs described in a number of unpleasant ways including Alliteration: ‘coarse croaking’ the harsh ‘c’ sound creating a violence, adding to the unpleasant, threatening nature of the frogs to the child (Heaney).

Onomatopoeia: ‘the slap and plop were obscene threats’, here ‘slap’ and ‘plop’ are both hard and unpleasant, almost vulgar sounds, emphasising the vulgar, slimy nature of the procreating frogs. Simile: ‘their loose necks pulsed like sails’ gives a sense of the movement of the necks of the frogs moving like something man-made. Sails can be large, which also makes this movement seem large and exaggerated. ‘Some sat poised like mud grenades’ is an explosive image which makes it seem like the frogs may explode at any time, giving a sense of the movement of a typical frog, sitting quite still then suddenly leaping to their next place of rest.

This all adds to the dangerous and angry image of the frogs here. metaphor ‘their blunt heads farting’ is a gross, unpleasant image, making the sound of a fart link to the noise the croaking frogs make, which makes it seem natural but unpleasant and disgusting (also linking to the rotten smell). They are described using personification as ‘great slime kings’ as if they are the most powerful slimy things you could imagine, superior to all other things and they are gathered ‘for vengeance’ so there is a huge sense of threat that they will do immense damage.

The final image is of Heaney’s fear of touching the frogspawn and it clutching at his hand, almost aggressive, like the frogs and overpowering.