1. Genetics (p125) and Song(p168)
Read both poems.
How are they connected? What might be a point of comparison?

2. Focus for today
Explore how patterning and structure can support meaning in poetry

3. Genetics

4. Vilanelle

5. A villanelle requires two repeated lines which alternate as the end line of each stanza, and the whole poem is constructed from only two rhymes. The parents’ relationship with each other and their child is beautifully expressed by this structure, form and meaning in the poem becoming one. The interlacing of words and rhyme suggests the complex inheritance of genetics as revealed in the narrator’s hands. The villanelle is also a circular form, coming back in the final couplet to where it began. It forms a ring, echoing the imagery of marriage in the poem.

6. Look at the first two rhyme words
Look at the first two rhyme words. What is the significance of the poet’s use of half rhyme in her version of the villanelle?
How does the poet use this form to explore her subject matter?
What tone does the poem have? What kinds of language contribute to this and how does this relate to the subject matter?
Discuss the final stanza and how it is both different from and similar to the rest of the poem.

7. Song Poem dedicated to Helen Suzman

8. Why is the idea of ‘Song’ relevant to the poem’s celebration of collective action?
Discuss how Szirtes uses repetition to mirror the meaning of his poem.
How do the line breaks contribute to the poem’s overall effect?
In his poem ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’, W.H. Auden famously said that ‘poetry makes nothing happen.’ What ‘happens’ in this poem?