Nettles

• My son aged three fell in the nettle bed

  Bed seemed a curious name for those green spears

  That regiment of spite behind the shed

  It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears

  The boy came seeking comfort and I saw

  White blisters beaded on his tender skin

  We soothed him till his pain was not so raw

  At last he offered us a watery grin

  And then I took my hook and honed the blade ---
• --- And went outside and slashed in fury with it

  Till not a nettle in that fierce parade

  Stood upright any more. Next task: I lit

  A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead

  But in two weeks the busy sun and rain

  Had called up tall recruits behind the shed

  My son would often feel sharp wounds again
• Message of the poem: everyone goes through hardship. The author expresses the message by using his son as an example who fell on a bed of nettles.

  Metaphors: the metaphors in the poem are associated with the military and war. I believe this is so, as war has a theme of pain and anguish (from death/violence) and the author tries to associate the anguish of war with the pain his son experienced on nettles. ex) "that regiment of spite" "green spears" "fierce parade" "the fallen dead" "tall recruits"
• Themes:

  • Protection - Scannell comforted his son who fell on the nettle bed until he gave the 'watery grin'. The father then gets revenge for his son by fiercely cutting down the nettles.
  • Pain (anguish) - this theme appears under a guise of the military, as the military is often associated with sacrifice, killings and pain while his son experiences pain by falling on a nettle bed.
  • Inevitability - no matter what you do to try to avoid the negative outcome, it is bound to happen again. Scannell demonstrates this by cutting down the nettles, only for it to grow back and hurt his son again.
• Poetic Techniques:

  • Contrast - "busy sun and rain" they are opposite from each other but unite together to hurt his son again
  • Personification - the nettles are given qualities of the military
  • Alliteration - "blisters beaded" shows the malice of the nettles
  • Metaphor - "regiment of spite", "fierce parade"