Nettles by Vernon Scannel. Vernon Scannells poem Nettles, creates a sense of pity when you read it as the image of a young boy falling in a nettle patch isnt pleasant.

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                                    Cameron Burns – Critical Essay – Nettles

Vernon Scannell’s poem Nettles, creates a sense of pity when you read it as the image of a young boy falling in a nettle patch isn’t pleasant. And as a human race, we feel sorry for good people who experience unnecessary pain.

The constant reminder of the pain felt creates an atmosphere comparable to when nettles sting you.

“White blisters beaded on his tender skin”

Is a great way to show pain as it describes the effect of the nettles on the skin and also uses sensitive words normally associated with pain to help describe it. Although these constant reminders of pain are quite depressing, they are in a way balanced out by the rhyming found at the end of second line:

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“My son aged three fell in the nettle bed

Bed seemed like a curious name for those little green spears

That regiment of spite behind the shed”

This scheme of rhyming the last word of every second line continues throughout the poem’s entirety and in a strange way is quite comforting.

Although the subject matter is nettles and being stung by them. The theme of this poem is war, although at first this may be unnoticeable. But once you reads it again you‘ll find many connotations of war contained within descriptions. Such as:

“Green spears”

“Regiment of spite”

“Fierce parade”

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