1. My father thought it bloody queer Simon Armitage

2. My father thought it bloody queer, the day I rolled home with a ring of silver in my ear half hidden by a mop of hair. Older generation with different attitudes. Father’s language, not narrator’s. mop = scruffy: again signifies parent’s language and attitude to teenagers. Earring symbolises the rebellion of the child.

3. ‘You’ve lost your head. If that’s how easily you’re led you should’ve had it through your nose instead.’ Speech marks indicate direct speech – this is exactly what he remembers his father saying. Repeated rhyme highlights amusing criticism.

4. And even then I hadn’t the nerve to numb the lobe with ice, then drive a needle through the skin, then wear a safety pin. Alliteration highlights fear of physical pain. Powerful, violent verb – signifies the more ‘manly’ way his father might have favoured. Punk era

5. It took a jeweller’s gun to pierce the flesh, and then a friend to thread a sleeper in, and where it slept the hole became a sore, became a wound, and wept. Help with rebellion comes from elsewhere, not his father. A source of pain and irritation – physical or emotional? Alliteration highlights pain and sadness at deteriorating relationship.

6. At twenty nine, it comes as no surprise to hear my own voice breaking like a tear, released like water, cried from way back in the spiral of the ear. New stanza, new time. We are now in the present. Upsetting to finally realise his stupidity; perhaps now too late to tell his father that he was right. Earring now a painful reminder of the damage done to the relationship with his father.

7. If I were you, I’d take it out and leave it out next year. Italic font shows speech. Perhaps he is imagining what his father would say, perhaps it is the narrator’s voice saying to himself it is time to grow up and move on.