Which American poet wrote “Blueberries”, a poem describing berries “as big as the end of your thumb”?

The lyrical poem “Blueberries” was composed by Robert Frost (1874 -1963), one of the most celebrated 20th century American poets. He was born in San Francisco and lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, although he never graduated from college.

In his poem, Pulitzer Prize-winner Frost made the ordinary experience of picking wild blueberries into an extraordinary endeavor, where you can smell the morning damp and feel the sun on your head and take delight in being the first to discover a blueberry patch ripe for picking.

The poem begins:

“You ought to have seen what I saw on my way,

To the village, through Mortenson’s pasture today:

Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb...”

The poem also introduces the reader to a poor neighboring family that needs the wild berries they pick to survive.

Frost provides a description of the pleasures of picking wild fruit with birdsong and weather to settle the gatherer into the heart of nature while picking the sweet harvest.

One commentator and critic suggests the poem may have been inspired by the poet’s great aunt and great uncle’s farm in Amherst, New Hampshire, where young Robert and his sister helped pick and sell the wild berries.