August pool session

Blackberry Picking

One of Seamus Heaney’s most famous poems - “Blackberry Picking” - is set in August.

By an astonishing coincidence, one of Maidstone Canoe Club's most famous events - “Pool Session” - is also set in August, on the 20th. Book here!

Only one of them has a Nobel Prize for Literature though:

https://maidstonecanoeclub.net/events/1ef39f86-5148-4d6a-bdda-9cdd9dcf3ccb/pool-session?instance=1

Late August, given heavy rain and sun

For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.

At first, just one, a glossy purple clot

Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.

You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet

Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it

Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for

Picking. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50981/blackberry-picking