How to Choose a Powerful Poem Title
- A chapter from How To Write Evocative Poetry -
You want to carefully consider the name of your poem. Often the name will come from a word or a line within the poem that best exemplifies its meaning. You want to choose a word or phrase that is catchy and symbolic. Consider the names of most of the poems presented in this book and you will see that I usually adhere to this rule. That said, I chose the title for Dad because I wanted to use the title to contextualise the meaning of the poem to the reader – but I felt that attempting to cram the word ‘dad’ into the poem would make it feel clunky and forced.
Dad
What thoughts
Are confined
In the vault
Of your mind?Why
Don’t you speak
And share
What you think?I don’t know
Who you are
Beyond what
I can seeAnd what I can see
Is that you
Clearly
Have no time for me
Of course, given the free nature of poetry, there are no limitations to what you can and cannot do when naming a piece. Some poets choose to put the name of their piece after the poem. This option can emphasise certain points of the piece, or recontextualise aspects of the piece, causing the reader to reconsider the whole. Consider the following small example:
all words
are just air
through meat
broken promises
The poem itself could be interpreted multiple ways, but the addition of the title at the end, which doesn’t come from inside the piece, has the effect of reframing it into a story of despondency and disappointment, perhaps implying the breakdown of a relationship. Had the title been at the start, perhaps the entire piece would be less evocative.
In look at what i overcame, I also place the title at the end of the poem, which adds a level of ambiguity that enhances the impact of the title and thus the piece as a whole. Is the title yet another statement from a belligerent relative berating the author, or is it the author highlighting what they themselves overcame? In this way, the title is now more than a mere label, it itself has become part of the poem.
hide your shame
don’t share your pain
why’d you bring it up again?
you’re the one with blame
i told you it was just a game
you must be insane
you must be lame
I can’t believe the lies you claim
i can’t believe the failure you became
i can’t believe we share the same name
look at what i overcame
Of course, poems do not need to be named. Once again, this choice will have its own positives and negatives. Not giving it a name suggests mystery, freedom, and choice of the reader to take it wherever it takes them. That said, it does take away the opportunity to frame the piece or add something extra to it. Also, not having a title, makes it more difficult for readers to talk about the piece – if you plan on sharing your work with the world and want to grow an audience, you may want to consider the impacts of unnamed pieces on SEO, contents pages, and other digital marketing impacts. Not very poetic, but for some of you it will be a pivotal consideration.
Summary
Choosing a name for your poem is an opportunity to add or expand upon the piece – as is the placement of the name – it is just as much a part of the piece as the words within.
This chapter is from the book How To Write Evocative Poetry
