Hi poets,
Let’s talk about titles! Do you usually come up with the title before you write a poem, or does it come to you after the poem is finished? Maybe it changes halfway through?
Some writers need a title as a sort of anchor to guide the piece, while others can’t name a poem until they’ve stepped back and seen the whole thing. Some titles are poetic in themselves, while others are simple and direct.
What’s your process when it comes to titling your poems? Do you have any favourite titles you’ve used—or ones that drove you mad trying to get just right?
I title my poems last! it gives me a sense of completion.
For me, finding the title is part of my revision. I might find my final title while writing the first draft, but usually I leave a stand-in title or no title and find a good title when revising.
I don’t think I can say I never have the title first - but I will say more often the title comes later. Sometimes it easily pops into my head, other times it is a bit more of a struggle. Especially tricky sometimes because the title may change the way the poem is received or, in fact, the meaning of poem. It’s an extra piece of context or perhaps even a line itself at times.
Sometimes, the title comes from within the poem, sometimes outside of it, and sometimes it comes after finishing the poem and searching my different-programmed brain to find a suitable title. Sometimes the title hits me right away and that’s the first thing I’ll put down. Sometimes I change it, but oftentimes I don’t. I always find, however, that a title unifies a poem and centralizes it in ways one doesn’t see right away, but grows on one after a bit of contemplation. For me, short titles tend to have more impact than long ones. I find that long titles tend to lose their edge, at least in the poems I write, while short ones tend to send out feelers and electric impulses that compound and expand upon the overall sense and flow of the poem. A different title from the body of the poem tends to produce two streams of thought, when I contemplate it, and that gives me even deeper, more meaningful, and subtler inferences and references upon which to center and arrange my thoughts. It’s not enough to create something obvious, but to find something out of the norm that excites, captivates, keeps your nerves on edge and makes you question how the blazes you came up with it in the first place!
I always find having the title within the poem holds great power!