ESSAY: Poetry creative writing and commentary

[beccaelizabeth]

Torchwood Sonnet

 

The Captain, Harkness - Ianto calls him 'sir',

Or 'Jack' in moments duty doesn't call.

As lovers, between shots, they would whisper...

Alas - for now, those few shots are their all.

One stopwatch scene - the audience, denied

The details, fast becoming nervous wrecks -

The lust is epic, and unsatisfied,

Since two screen kisses don't add up to sex.

Yet true love never shall to strictures bow

And loving minds ever invention mean

Our heroes love is secret only now -

Just wait until the fanfic hits the screen.

Although we barely saw them, we don't mourn -

We fans all know the internet's for porn.

 

 

Torchwood Sonnet critical commentary

 

Torchwood is a BBC television series, 13 episodes to a season, about 45 minutes to an episode.  A Sonnet is a fixed form of poetry, typically 14 lines long, frequently written in sequences.  Fixed length and sequence reminded me of television, and I found further comparisons within the usual structure of a sonnet – divided into 3 quatrains and a couplet – and an episode – which could be 3 acts and a tag.  But television is generally considered popular culture, and very modern.  Torchwood in particular is a science fiction series, much concerned with the future.  Whereas Sonnets are the epitome of high culture poetry, and bring to mind Elizabethan times.  That contrast seemed amusing to me.

 

Sonnets can be Italian or English.  Italian sonnets have the rhyme scheme abbaabba cdecde, and the rhyme divides them into an octave and sestet.  The division is usually used for the volta, the place where the argument turns around.  That often carried through into English sonnets, though their rhyme abab cdcd efef gg divides into three quatrains and a couplet, and puts the main formal change just before the couplet, which sometimes moved the volta too.  The rhyme scheme changed because there aren’t as many words that rhyme in English.  My first draft of my poem didn’t rhyme at all, and when I went back to create rhymes I rediscovered this in practice, so decided on the scheme that only needed two of each sound.

 

Sonnet structure is typically used to introduce an argument, elaborate on it, then turn it around, and finally resolve it, with each stage corresponding to a formal division.  Usual concerns in the era it was first popular covered courtly love, the adoration of someone of lower social status for someone of higher status.  In the later revival sonnets were frequently elegiac, written to dead friends.

 

The first quatrain of my sonnet introduces two characters from Torchwood.  The first line establishes that there are two characters and one of them is of higher social status than the other.  ‘Shots’ introduces the idea of violence.  There are three main semantic fields in this poem, concerned with violence & war, love & sex, and communication & media.  The first two are obvious in the first quatrain.  “Captain / duty / shots” suggest war, and repeating shots emphasizes that it is a major part of their lives.  “Lovers” & “whisper” suggests sweet nothings.  But call & whisper go together as communication, and one kind is stronger than the other.  Whisper suggests concealment.  Duty doesn’t call so they can whisper; a whisper that would be drowned out if duty did call.  “Alas / few / all” add up to suggest some tragedy, and with “shots” repeated and war evoked it sounds like maybe someone gets shot.  Viewers of Torchwood know that Jack was shot in the last episode, and later spent several days dead.  There’s room at this point for this to be a straight up elegiac poem, from when Ianto was in mourning.

 

But “shots” has other meanings.  A lot of them add layers to the meaning here.  It can be a drug reference, suggesting an addictive relationship.  Shots in sport can be attempts to score; Torchwood played basketball on screen in one episode, and ‘score’ suggests sex.  It can simply mean different attempts, and Jack & Ianto had a few false starts in their on screen relationship.  It can also mean smart remarks, or attempts to wound with words, which is appropriate for these two.  And finally it is another media reference – camera shots.  And that is the aspect that the second quatrain amplifies.

 

 

The stopwatch is a lovely symbol.  Stop/watch – have to stop watching.  Or time – make time stop or make it run.  That links to a lot of love poetry, from Marvell to INXS lyrics.  But it is also a symbol from the series, linked to death, and the relationship between Jack and Ianto.  They are probably having sex but the audience only gets to see two kisses and an ambiguous proposition.  Ianto says “Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch”; Jack grins and sends the others home.  The actors are sure that what happens next cannot be talked about in front of children, but the audience is free to interpret it many different ways.  The word “audience” joins “scene, screen” and “shots” to clarify that we’re talking about television.  This quatrain also shifts the focus from “lovers” to “lust, kisses, sex”.  It breaks from standard sonnet topics in some ways – Jack is very attainable – but refocuses so it’s still about unattainable love – that of fans for characters.  The fans cannot have sex with the characters, so denied/unsatisfied, nervous wrecks about sex.  Rhyme reinforces meaning.

 

The third quatrain starts with “Yet”, signaling a volta, in the conventional place.  It returns to conventional poetic language and topics, talking about true love.  But it says “loving minds”, not hearts, and is meant to refer to the audience.  “Our” heroes – Jack and Ianto - now become possessions of some group the speaker identifies with, as well as objects of admiration.  “Fanfic” is fan fiction, work written by the audience not the original producers.  “Screen” is another repeated word with double meanings – it can mean something that hides or shows.  In this case “hits the screen” suggests violent breaking what hides them from us, but also “hit” in media suggests something popular, shown on the same screen where they were created.  Same word in different fields has different meanings.  So it turns around to say that actually characters aren’t so unattainable after all – since they were created through writing, they can be rewritten.

 

The final couplet identifies “we fans” as the speaker, and sums up the sexual aspects of the poem with “the internet’s for porn.”  This gets even funnier as an intertext reference to Avenue Q, a musical that is known to many Torchwood fans because an actress from Torchwood has been in it.  But it is basically funny because you don’t expect it to be declaimed in iambic pentameter and sonnet form.  Genre expectations clash with topic and in/formal registers, creating humour.

 

The central tension in this poem is intended to be between shots “they” officially produce, which limit what is allowed, and “we fans” creating, where anything goes.  Fanfic is about taking available texts – television series or sonnets – and using them to produce more texts that emphasise aspects especially useful or valuable to fans.  Using the fixed form of the sonnet to talk about fan favourite topics like SF shows and sex is demonstrating what fanfic is about.

 

 

Bibliography

Furniss, T. & Bath, M. (1996) Reading Poetry.  England:  Prentice Hall.

There were notes in the margins.  Again telling me to put paragraphs together or that one was too short.
Also
The first paragraph got "Great this is a nice idea and something which take further at some point"
... I think, again there's reading it.  But teach said it would be an interesting topic for the... whatsit, bit essay at the end, I knew the word a minute ago...  I have a brain but it's still asleep...
ANYways
The bit "There are three main semantic fields in this poem" gets "Good such an interesting way to work" ... I think succh, could be stuff.  Either way... I'm working a particular way?  I'll have to find out what it is so I can do it again...

"There's room at this point for this to be a straight up elegiac poem" gets a wiggly line under straight up and "watch your expression here".   Someone from LJ in a comment said this is because I didn't need to say "straight up" at all.  I am enlightened.  Also, I would have had two extra words to play with elsewhere.  Always cool.

"Rhyme reinforces meaning." gets "This is an odd little sentence."
Yes.  It is.  I'm sure I meant something by it at the time.

Most of the - are circled.
I guess I was just in a - mood.

POSITIVE ASPECTS OF ASSIGNMENT
Learning Outcomes Achieved:

Poem Torchwood -this is an unusual topic for a poem and illustrates a nice connection betwen popular culture and the sonnet tradition. This is something you may be able to take further in your studies. The sonnet works well and for the most part you are keeping to the iambic rhythm and the rhyme scheme works, in an odd sort of way. The language choice is good and you have chosen good semantic fields to highlight the topic -well done

commentary- this is a good commentary that illustrates a clear understanding of genre there are times when your language use seems to slip into rather a chatty style , this is something you will need to watch in future. You link the language choice of the sonnet to that of popular culture which is interesting. You do need to watch the grammatical structure of your essays, you seem to use the hyphen a lot for some reason. Still an original and thoughtful first piece of work..


ASPECTS FOR IMPROVEMENT
Learning Outcomes not achieved:

As above -try and watch your language choice in the exam.

62%

Comments

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Just a few points off the cuff. (If you have specific questions, feel free to ask)
re the dashes, they're a problem because it's not clear what you mean by them. They're a vague sort of emphasis, but their exact meaning at every point is obscure. Try to replace them with other, more specific punctuation or with words and see what you meant by them. For instance:
“Our” heroes – Jack and Ianto -
I assume you mean to enumerate the heroes, so the right punctuation here are commas. The construction is known as an appositive.

Fanfic is about taking available texts – television series or sonnets –
I assume here you mean exemplification, so it should be something like: 'texts, such as television series or sonnets,'

It breaks from standard sonnet topics in some ways – Jack is very attainable – but refocuses so it’s still about unattainable love – that of fans for characters.
Here you have a whole complex relationship that needs to be clarified in sentences. The dashes leave absolutely unclear what the relation between the bits of information is.
Phrasing points:
Yes. It is. I'm sure I meant something by it at the time.
If you don't, how is anyone else supposed to guess? That's part of how the more detailed formal approach, which forces you to clarify what you meant while writing, helps.

btw - Adam says that Word counts dashes as words, so if you're on a word limit, pay attention to that (assignments aren't usually calculated on exact word counts (unlike drabbles), but if you use a lot of them, it's a good point to be aware of).

[beccaelizabeth]

dashes COUNT?!
*facepalm*
*headdesk*

... I'll have more reaction when I un-headdesk ...

*headdesk*

[beccaelizabeth]

This with the punctuation makes sense.
Vague and obscure more accurately reflects my brain, but isn't so much useful.