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  #11  
Unread 09-09-2021, 03:03 PM
Sarah-Jane Crowson's Avatar
Sarah-Jane Crowson Sarah-Jane Crowson is offline
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I've had discussions about titles in other spaces, but not here. For context, these discussions weren't specifically about getting poems 'read' on workshop boards, but more about how the title worked with the poem generally, which of course intersects with how they work with any reader, poetry board or external.

From what I remember, there was a kind of taxonomy that rose from the discussion - in that titles can be variously -
  • interesting summaries of the content that hook the reader (and editor) 'in'
  • juxtapositions, which work with the poem's content to add a further dimension (or dimensions) to the poem
  • explications, which offer the reader a steer or coherent narrative within which to read the poem (this was useful for me as a visual poet)
I'll go and look out the specific info and see if there's anything I've missed (I'm sure there is).

But the gist of the discussion was certainly that titles are hugely important, and I've certainly found that to be the case in my own work, where sometimes the title might be half the word-based content, or more.

Sarah-Jane
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  #12  
Unread 09-09-2021, 04:18 PM
R. S. Gwynn's Avatar
R. S. Gwynn R. S. Gwynn is offline
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I hadn't thought about bots, but the problem seems a minor one. Workshopping a poem here or posting it on Facebook for a limited number of viewers shouldn't count as publication, especially since the final version may be different from what was posted.

Titles are great hooks. If I were looking at a jukebox, would I pick "Song" over "Jumpin' Jack Flash"? When Dickinson's few poems appeared in print, didn't they have titles? Supplied by editors or the poet herself? I don't know.

Yeats was an interesting titler. Stevens, yes. I am reminded of how I first read "Bantams in Pine Woods" without taking enough time to realize he was describing fighting cocks.

Last edited by R. S. Gwynn; 09-16-2021 at 12:30 AM.
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  #13  
Unread 09-09-2021, 04:25 PM
Jesse Anger Jesse Anger is offline
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Sam,

Posting on fb isn't equivalent to posting here. I'd consider a poem posted on fb as published... not here, though. And posting poems on fb is cringe anywayyy.
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  #14  
Unread 09-10-2021, 06:09 AM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is offline
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The Flower Called Nowhere
How to Play Your Internal Organs Overnight
Escape Pod (From the World of Medical Observations)
The Long Hair of Death
Lo Boob Oscillator
Get a Shot of the Refrigerator
International Coloring Contest
You Used to Call Me Sadness
I Was a Sunny Rainphase
The Noise of Carpet
Ticker-tape of the Unconscious
John Cage Bubblegum
Exploding Head Movie
The Man With 100 Cells
Nihilist Assault Group
Pack Yr Romantic Mind
Italian Shoes Continuum
Prisoner of Mars
Free Witch and the No-Bra Queen
The Brush Descends the Length
Self-Portrait with "Electric Brain"
Freestyle Dumpling
Fluorescences
Oscillons from the Anti-Sun
Rose, My Rocket Brain!
Refractions in the Plastic Pulse
Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Excursions into "Oh, A-Oh"
Animal or Vegetable (A Wonderful Wooden Reason...)
Rainbo Conversation
Come and Play in the Milky Night
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  #15  
Unread 09-10-2021, 06:10 AM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is offline
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(acknowledging my Masters)
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  #16  
Unread 09-10-2021, 07:06 AM
Allen Tice's Avatar
Allen Tice Allen Tice is offline
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Those venues that won’t accept online pre-published work: Poetry, the Atlantic, and so on, are not going tell you why you have been rejected. Period. How much originality does it take to invent an interesting dummy title and some blanked-out header lines that foil a bot? To go on and on for years demanding evidence to show that bots don’t kill your chances with the big name venues is exactly like denying climate change: rigid and actually dumb, and you do know better. I repeat, how much work is it to make an interesting or at least grabby or weird cover title? The work of a minute. C’mon, big guy, you know I’m right. Example: I would title this thread “Tiny Tim Tiptoes To Entitlement.” There, that took less effort than a microwaved coffee. The world was flat, but it isn’t any more.
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  #17  
Unread 09-10-2021, 08:38 AM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
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About Dickinson's lack of titles, I believe that titles were usual in her day, and I doubt that she was happy when editors put titles on her poems. I see her lack of titles as one more way in which she was resisting pressures to conform. Her poems often have a riddling quality, and I think she means the process of discovery to be gradual.

About titles in general, I think they can serve many different purposes. I am not keen on titles that are weird for the sake of weirdness, but I do think that a title that sparks curiosity often can be the nudge that makes a reader want to read the poem. I dislike titles that just name the verse form, but occasionally naming the verse form can have a point, if the verse form is rare or its name is part of the meaning of the title. I once titled a poem "What Goes: A Rondelet" both to tip off readers to the form I was using and to play on the phrase "What goes around, comes around."

I enjoy wordplay in a title, but I have found that using a title that I meant to be ironic can be a bad idea, because many readers may not catch the irony and will take it in the literal sense. Having a title whose meaning expands as the poem is read is a plus. Using a foreign word or phrase or a very rare word as a title can backfire if people can't figure out its meaning from the content of the poem, but need to look the word up. Despite this day of smart phones, I don't tend to break off from reading a poem to look up words, and I often find very obscure titles pretentious. Titles that allude to another poem run the risk of being compared to the other poem, often negatively, and I think that practice has become a cliché. Every age has its own clichés of titling poems. I confess that I look first at the name of the author of a poem. If I know and like that author, I will read anything by him or her. Titles count for most when I don't know the author.

Susan
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  #18  
Unread 09-10-2021, 12:00 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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We're creatures of our own centuries' conventions, but throughout history, most poems have been known only by their first lines, not by titles. Most titles were added by editors, not authors, in lieu of a contextual note. (The editor-supplied title "To Her Portrait" makes Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's sonnet far less baffling than if the reader just jumped into it.)

We had a Drills and Amusement thread back in Ought Five or thereabouts, in which people proposed poem titles guaranteed to make you stop reading. My favorite was "My Depression (Part 9 of 11)" or similar.

Last edited by Julie Steiner; 09-10-2021 at 02:36 PM.
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  #19  
Unread 09-10-2021, 12:10 PM
W T Clark W T Clark is offline
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Didn't M.A. Griffiths have a poem that's title promised readers a high-falutine meditation upon mortality and the universe, and that's actual contents was simply:
y
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  #20  
Unread 09-10-2021, 07:16 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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Not quite--Maz's poem was long enough to rhyme.

I can't find the bad title thread, just the thread of bad poems inspired by them. And it was in Ought Four.

Last edited by Julie Steiner; 09-10-2021 at 07:20 PM.
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