Genetics - blog post by Lisa & Ailbhe

Genetics by Sinead Morrissey

This poem talks about the importance of marriage and the celebrated relationship between a mother and father even though they have separated.  It talks about how even though the parents have separated; ‘the child’ is a representation of their marriage and love they had once shared. The poem ends with the narrator speaking to who we believe is her lover and she is telling him the importance of marriage.

One interpretation we made was that the palms and hands were a metaphor for the mother and father’s relationship. It is given the actions of repelling and also linking together. ‘They may have been repelled to separate hands’/ ‘but in me they touch where fingers link to palms’. To emphasise this, the poet refers to a children's game where the hands are put together with the index fingertips touching, knuckles of the other fingers touching, and the thumbs bent inwards. The index fingers, children are told, represents the steeple or tower of the church, the knuckles the body of the church and the folded thumbs the door. When turned over so the palms and fingers are exposed, representing the contents of the church. "Here is the church... here is the steeple... open the door... and here are all the people. ”  The third stanza shows us the opinions of family members and friends who witnessed the coming together of the parents. ‘but friends who quarry for their image by a river’. This shows us that the relative are searching and trying to remember the memories of  the good times they shared ( photos, videos); “nothing left of their togetherness but friends” – brings about the question of who’s side do the couple’s friends go on?

The poem is a poem is a Villanelle form which is very structured and has a strict rhyme scheme, 5 stanzas with 3 lines however the last stanza includes 4 lines. Stanza 1 to 5 is recognition of her parents’ marriage and the last stanza gives us different approach as she is speaking to her lover. ‘ I’ll bequeath my fingers, if you bequeath your palms’.  Rhyming words like words such as ‘palms’, ‘hands’ and ‘demands’ which may at first seem shaky (making them half rhymes), however this helps to highlight that children are not carbon copies of their parents, a direct link to the title. But that there is always a link despite physical separation gives us different approach as she is speaking to her lover. ‘I’ll bequeath my fingers, if you bequeath your palms’. The use of repetition is repeated at the beginning of the poem and also at the end: ‘My fathers in my hands, but my mothers in my palms.’ This shows us how close her and her parents her even though they are not together.