Genetics

Question 1

Form

Answer 1

5 tercets and a quatrain, specific rhyme scheme

Question 2

How many lines

Answer 2

19 build in Tone and intensity, each stanza revise initial idea

Question 3

Repetition of the words

Answer 3

‘Palms’ ‘hands’

Question 4

Structure

Answer 4

Large gap between consecutive rhymes

Question 5

‘Hands palms’ ‘hands palms’

Answer 5

Repetition

Question 6

Title

Answer 6

Ironically not just your genetics that your parents influence

• 3 syllables
• positive, nostalgic, certain

Question 7

First line of poem

Answer 7

Imagery of two joined hands can be separated, individuals fingers, palms hard to seperate

Question 8

Their hands are physically

Answer 8

Similar, connotation of marriage

Question 9

‘Palms’ first line

Answer 9

Literally but metaphorically represent unity of parents

Question 10

‘Pleasure’

Answer 10

Hyphen used as reflective pause, rhythm

Question 11

‘Made’

Answer 11

Sculpted, moulded

Question 12

‘Seperate hemispheres’

Answer 12

Imagery of two joined hands being separated, individuals fingers and palms hard to separate

Question 13

‘Repelled to separate lands’

Answer 13

Negative, magnetic repel and attract parents separation

Question 14

‘But friends’

Answer 14

Enjambment, lack of clarity

Question 15

‘By my fingers’

Answer 15

Visualise marriage in church

- reflectivity, nostalgia, rose tinted view

Question 16

‘Quarry for their image by a river’

Answer 16

Stagnant, sounds similar to quarrel, allows us to question if speaker has been effected by parents separation

Question 17

‘My body’ is their marriage register

Answer 17

Whole body

• marriage and separation divorce only implied, marriage is intended
• reflects that this is forever in her genetics

Question 18

‘I’ll bequeath’

Answer 18

Total surrender, traditional conventions of marriage

Question 19

‘Steeple stands’

Answer 19

Dedicated to childhood nursery rhyme

Question 20

‘Parents make us by our hands’

Answer 20

Bigger picture, important that there is a permanent union, children that what may happen in the future of their own relationship

Question 21

Identity is not just

Answer 21

Within generations but also our own personal relationships both romantically with children and parents
- darker undertone

Question 22

The narrator is trying to come to

Answer 22

Terms with the diverse

Question 23

‘So take me with you’

Answer 23

In light of separation

- hope

Question 24

‘Reciting psalms’

Answer 24

Psalms sand like palms religious, marriage

Question 25

‘Genetics’

Answer 25

One word, ambiguous, scientific, factual evidence of how people are made up

Question 26

Last stanza

Answer 26

Suggestive of her future children, cyclical aspect to poem

Question 27

Union

Answer 27

There is a permanent union within them through their children

Question 28

Use of end stopped lines

Answer 28

Adds a rhythmic effect