November 27, 2024
Wondering how to come up with a great poem title? You’ve written a poem, and you’re happy with it. It expresses everything you wanted to say in the language you wanted to use. There’s only problem. You can’t come up with a poem title. It can be difficult to create a poem title that’s catchy, fresh, and hasn’t been used a thousand times. Here are some tips to help you come up with new ideas for your poem title.
Some writers have a poem title in mind when they draft a poem or a short story—in some cases, the poem title may have come into their mind and inspired the poem. In most cases, though, you must spend time crafting a poem title. A poem’s title matters because, like a book title or a person’s name, it gives you an idea of what to expect.
When you title a poem correctly, the makes your poem’s meaning clear, explains why you chose a certain symbolic element, and celebrates the person or place that inspired you. Like a good book title, it invokes curiosity in the reader.
Using your muse is a classic way to title a poem, from William Cowper’s “To Delia” to Richard Lovelace’s “To Lucasta Going to the Wars.”
John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” is another famous example, in which the poet thanks the nightingale for its beautiful song that has helped him escape his worries and reconnect with nature.
This may seem like an old-fashioned approach, but modern poets have also written odes to various animals, objects, and people. Modern examples include Marge Piercy’s “The Cat’s Song” and Ann Sexton’s “To My Lover, Returning to His Wife.”
This is a straightforward way to title a poem, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less powerful. Ask yourself: Who or what inspired your poem? Who is it about? Let that someone shine as the star of your poem title.
As a poet, you are probably fond of puns and wordplay. Use that to your advantage when you title a poem,
In Brenda Shaughnessy’s “I’m Over the Moon,” the writer uses the familiar phrase “over the moon,” which usually means that you’re incredibly happy about something. In this case, she is using it in the modern slang sense, which means that you’re fed up with something.
In the poem, she rails against the moon because it offers only empty promises and says she prefers the sun because it’s honest. The poem’s opening line, “I’m over you, Moon,” sets the tone for this witty take on a common poetic metaphor.
Dorothy Parker’s “Resume’” uses the word in its classic meaning, which is, to sum things up. In this case, she lists all the reasons she shouldn’t kill herself—for instance, that gas smells bad and razors hurt—and offers a final summing up: “You might as well live.”
Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem” begins by describing a woman who is clumsy, disheveled, and always late. The title seems like an odd choice because it is not until the very end that we realize it is, in fact, a love poem. We only realize that the poet is deeply in love with her at the very end of the poem. In this case, he uses a well-worn, even cliché’ title in a new, interesting way.
Wilfred Owens wrote his famous poem about the horrors of World War I, and titled it, “Dulce et Decorum Est.” The title comes from a well-known Latin epigram that translates to “It is sweet and proper to die for your country.” Owens even concludes with the two lines in Latin, but it’s clear from his description of a battlefield that the line is meant ironically. Owens, a combat veteran, knew there was nothing sweet about dying in a war.
Poets are good at finding beauty in everyday details. Use one of them to title a poem in a fresh, unexpected way.
In Jane Kenyon’s “The Shirt,” the poet uses an unexpected detail to write about her husband and her love for him. Instead of describing the man or her feelings for him, she focuses on the shirt he’s wearing and how it slides across his body. The poem evokes longing and desire—it isn’t really about a shirt.
Nikki Giovanni’s “Bay Leaves” is not really about cooking herbs. It is about learning to enjoy the simple things in life. She describes the lessons her grandmother and mother taught her, which all had to do with making do and surviving on simple foods. She concludes by noting that now, as an adult, she knows how to cook many things but always saves the bay leaves for “special” meals.
Use your poem title to introduce a sentence that the poem completes.
Take, for instance, William Carlos Williams’s “This Is Just to Say…” in which the poet apologizes for eating the plums that were in the refrigerator. The second line begins with an explanation that he ate the “plums that were in the icebox,” and that he knows the person reading the note may be angry. He ends the poem by asking for forgiveness.
Pablo Neruda used a similar technique in “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines…,” which is a poem about writing sad poems. The next lines offer examples of the type of sad language that he might use, if he wanted to write “the saddest lines.” The poem is about a lost love, and as it goes on, it becomes clear that he is writing about that loss and also about writing poetry.
The classic “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning takes this a step further by asking a question that the poem answers. She uses the question as both title and opening line. In this well-known love sonnet, she goes on to list all the ways she loves her beloved, even saying that her love for him has surpassed the love she once had for her religion.
Some poets simply repeat a line from the poem. Emily Dickinson was known for never coming up with a poem title. She just used the opening line of her poem as the title. Take, for example, her poem, “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me…” The title is the same as her poem’s opening lines.
Dickinson wrote over 1,000 poems, so maybe, she just gave up on the idea of creating a poem title for each one. In any case, the method seemed to work for her, so she stuck with it.
Dylan Thomas used a similar technique with his poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” The line is not only the title. It is also the refrain of the poem, repeated after every stanza and at the end of the poem. The poem is easy to remember because of that powerful, repeated line.
Places you’ve visited can inspire some great poetry. Using place names to title a poem is a common but effective technique.
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote his famous ode to the environment, “Inversnaid,” after visiting a riverbank area near Loch Lomond in Scotland. The wild, untouched landscape inspired him to compose this poem praising “the weeds and the wilderness” of nature.
Denise Levertov’s “February Evening in New York” describes the bustling, happy scenes of watching a city come alive after the shops and offices close. The poem compares walking through the city to a dance that celebrates life.
William Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” is a well-known example of a poem inspired by a particular place. He describes visiting the area after an absence of five years. The poem celebrates the beauty of this “wild secluded scene” and goes on to address his absent lover, who he hopes will remember how much he loved the landscape.
The right title makes any poem even better. Use your inspiration from a person, place, or thing to come up with a title that moves your reader. If you’re a poet who’s interested in self-publishing, Publishing Xpress can help make that a reality.
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