Tag Archives: genetic engineering

Helena Nelson, ‘The Fall (GM)’

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The tree was genetically modified.
The apple was full of dioxins.
The leaves were too green;
any fool could have seen
they were vibrant with millions of toxins.

A helpful old friend (we called him ‘The Snake’)
announced he’d go up there and get it.
I said to my spouse
‘We’ve got pears in the house’
but what did he do? Adam ate it.

He snaffled a bite with a smirk of delight,
then laughed till he cried (he was manic).
‘You’ll love it my dear,’
he said, ‘and look here—
I got you some seed. It’s organic.’

Well what could I say? It wasn’t my day
for dodging his amorous athletics.
It led to sheer babel
from wee Cain and Abel—
I blame the whole thing on genetics.

*****

Helena Nelson writes: “I wrote it more than twenty years ago, and at the time people were going on endlessly about GM foods and the risks thereof. They seem to be worrying about other things these days. Anyway, this was the result, and I’ve always liked it, although it is very silly. Maybe too silly.”

Helena Nelson runs HappenStance Press (now winding down) and also writes poems. Her most recent collection is Pearls (The Complete Mr and Mrs Philpott Poems). She reviews widely and is Consulting Editor for The Friday Poem.

Photo: “Everyone’s pregnant in the Garden of Eden!” by quinn.anya is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Poem: ‘Poetic Themes’

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You wake and see dew on the grass in spring
But I see futures present changes bring:
Global warming replacing dew with drought,
Nanotech replacing grass with grout,
A.I. replacing people’s minds and thought,
Genetic mods replacing us—with what?
In other words, our world’s about to pass.
Poetry must be more than dew on grass.

I was honestly a little surprised when Light Poetry Magazine told me they would publish this poem. I mostly associate them with their snippy, jokey little poems that appear weekly on topical subjects, Poems Of The Week. Maybe this is unfair, as their full twice-yearly magazine profiles individual poets and has useful book reviews as well as poetry from a couple of dozen formal poets. Be that as it may, I felt this poem might be a little more Dark than Light.

Not that I’m pessimistic about the future. I’m intrigued, and resigned. Just as in William Golding’s ‘The Inheritors’ in which a tribe of early humans finds modern humans moving in and displacing them, so modern humans look like being displaced by something we can’t yet identify. We are like Native Americans when the Europeans started arriving, like White America as the demographic shifts to a more globally representative population, or like every generation that finds the children and grandchildren listening to unrecognisable music and using incomprehensible technology. Is any of this bad? It can be handled well or badly, but it is a natural and unending process.

And now we’re facing a variety of technologies that together can completely remake the human: genetic engineering, A.I., robotics, infinite data-crunching, nanotechnology… Will we casually and irresponsibly start remaking humans? Of course. It’s inevitable. If one country clamps down on it, it will simply happen elsewhere. And what is the likely outcome? I haven’t a clue, but I’m intrigued.

Photo: “morning dew” by haglundc is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0