NOTES on "Thistles" by Ted Hughes. A poem from the book "touched with fire" used in the cambridge course.

Like tall nettles, thistles, takes ideas about life from nature.
The defiant character of the plant is emphasized in the very first word ("Against") of this poem. They not only resist all animal ("rubber tongues of cows") and human ("hoeing hands of men") attempts to destroy them but even attack the natural world, indicated by the words "spike the summer air". Further, they make it difficult for themselves to reproduce because their seed-pods open only under 'pressure'.
Every plant, without exception, is similarly defiant, according to the second stanza. Moreover, it is determined to rev…