1. Scannellends the poem with the fact that the speaker can
never beat the nettles. They admit that ‘My son would often
feel sharp wounds again.’ The writer repeats their use of the
pronoun ‘My’ which was the first word in the poem. This
indicates that they have not really made any progress and
have not learn from the experience. They are in the same
place at the end that they were in at the start. There is
something really sad defeated and deflated about in the tone
at the end because the speaker realises how hopeless and
powerless they are; Scannell uses the word ‘often’ to suggest
that their son will suffer throughout their life – it will not be
on one occasion. The adjective ‘sharp’ reflects not only the
pain to the boy but also the pain to the parent – they almost
suffer more knowing that they cannot protect them.The
poem does conclude with an end-stopped line but Scannell
uses such defeated words that this certainty offered by the
punctuation is almost juxtaposed by the lexical choices: they
have lost the battle.