Genetics

Introduction to the Poem

Sinéad Morrissey wrote “Genetics” at a time when she was contemplating starting a family with her husband. Having experienced the collapse of her parents’ marriage, she worried her own relationship would be doomed to failure. However, the poem ends with the hopeful decision to “take up the skin’s demands”.

Marriage

Thinking about her own union, the speaker considers her parents’ marriage.

That relationship has totally disintegrated and her parents now live in “separate lands” and “separate hemispheres”. The close repetition of “separate” and placing her parents in different “hemispheres”, which refers to splitting the earth in two, reinforces this division.

In physics, the verb “repelled” means to force apart by similar magnetic fields. The speaker’s parents were “separated” naturally by irreconcilable similarities and left a huge crack in her world.

She worries that the failure of her parents’ marriage could foreshadow the breakdown of her own relationship and impact any children they might have together.

Hands

The poet realised she had inherited her father’s long fingers and her mother’s square palms and began to “look at them with pleasure”. She is the combination of their “genetics”.

Even though their marriage ended, her “hands” are a reminder of their relationship and the speaker appreciates that sense of continuity.

This recognition of her identity as their daughter is clear in lines “I know my parents made me by my hands” and “at least I know their marriage by my hands”.

I Shape A Chapel

The forth line introduces Morrissey’s allusion to a children’s nursery rhyme:

“Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple
Open the door and see all the people.”

The easiest way to learn the hand movements is to watch the following link from the YouTube Channel “Mother Goose Club.

Nursery rhymes, especially those that involve action, are fun. Morrissey recalls this enjoyment and invites the reader to “re-enact their wedding” with their hands.

The Lyrical Structure

Our bodies are intricately defined by our genetics and those traits are passed from one generation to the next. That sense of complex inheritance can be found in poem’s precise and incredibly complex structure.

“Genetics” is a villanelle consisting of nineteen lines divided into five tercets where the speaker plays with images of “hands” and a concluding quatrain when she confidently welcomes the idea of passing her own “hands” down to her children.

This form also “demands” a fixed rhyme scheme where the first and third lines of each tercet end with the same sound. For example, “palms” in the opening line is echoed in the word “hands” which concludes the stanza. This establishes the first important sound: the soft nasal consonance combined with sibilance. It is then used again in “lands”, “friends”, “stands” and “demands”.

The way the final line of each tercet rhymes with the first line of next creates an important link across the visual gap of the stanza break. In this way, the poet reminds the reader of how our genetic code is inherited and makes the leap from one generation to the next.

However, villanelles contain a refrain so Morrissey continues to use “palms” and “hands” in each tercet. It seems our genetic code resonates through time and families.

Increasing the intricacy of the form, the second line of each tercet must also rhyme. Morrissey picked the neutral vowel ‘er’ sound in “pleasure”, “lovers”, “river”, “over” and “register”. The way this sound is enclosed by the other could suggest how Morrissey is the connection between her parents.

The final quatrain includes both sounds but also uses the “palms” and “hands” as a rhyming couplet. It is a very satisfying conclusion to a complex form, but it also conveys the speaker’s confident decision to “take up the skin’s demands” and have children.

The poem is wonderfully lyrical, especially the beautiful rhythm created by the relentless repetition of the key sounds. Read the opening line and listen for the nasal consonants in “my” and “mother’s”, the ‘er’ sound in “father’s”, “fingers” and “mother’s”, and the sibilance in those words: “My father’s in my fingers, but my mother’s in my palms”.

The sophisticated mixing of words and rhyme suggests the genetic inheritance Morrissey is contemplating during an intensely emotional decision to have children.

There is also the circular quality to the form. The poem begins and ends with the image of “palms” and “hands”. One generation will inevitably lead to the next.

Comprehension Questions

1. What is the study of genetics?
2. In your own words, explain the meaning of the opening line.
3. How does the speaker feel when she realises she has inherited these characteristics from her parents?
4. Explore in detail how the poet presents the complete breakdown of her parents’ marriage through the images of them being “repelled to separate lands” and “to separate hemispheres”.
5. How is this reinforced by the reference to them sleeping with other lovers?
6. Suggest why the speaker understands the importance of her inheritance at the end of the third tercet.
7. Suggest why the speaker imagines her parents’ marriage through the allusion to a nursery rhyme.
8. What decision has the speaker made by the end of the poem?
9. How does the form of the poem support its meaning?