titles and tribulations
I was recently plotting out a post for Patreon with advice on titling your work as a poet, something I've seen many different kinds of suggestions and guidance-seeking for. It feels important. What to call things we create, because ultimately, the title will always be what readers encounter first, so its our best foot forward. The first thing rushing in the door that sets the tone and mood for what follows. Occasionally, I come across a decent manuscript with a terrible title for dgp and will usually pass unless I know or have worked with the author in the past and feel comfortable suggesting a new title (though admittedly not everyone is open to such suggestions.)
I actually realized that I am not sure I am the person to write any sort of entry on this subject, mostly because some of my titles exist long before the poems or works they enfold exist in any form. For smaller projects, its usually something that exists first and I write toward it with some vague concept or source material in mind. It actually makes me uneasy to NOT have a title staring out. Kind of like feeling your way around a dark room and bumping into all the furniture. My first book, the fever almanac, was a melding of two separate manuscripts, one early version called just almanac and a second that I eventually enfolded in the first called fever poems. When I was working on girl show as my thesis it had always been girl show since I had penned the title poem first before any of the others. Other later books were partially written, but somewhere along the way, the title fell into place and sometimes helped guide the rest of the poems I was writing for the book. Some of my favorites were culled from random internet-speak or misreadings. Automagic (this was a joke in the Etsy forums, that things just happened to due to technology magic.). Collapsologies (the study of how things fall apart, scribbled down as the pandemic was starting). Ruinporn (in reference to beautiful pictures of beautiful abandoned homes). This latest collection coming this summer was actually purloined from a Taylor Swift lyric.
I currently have a list in a notebook of novel project titles. A separate list for poetry titles (either individual or for series/manuscripts). Now, these past few months, a short list of play titles and ideas. Since I put my Yellow Wallpaper adaptation away over the weekend to come back to in a few weeks, I start something new tonight, a play about ghosts and haunted pasts set in a rural farmhouse. I have a loose outline, but I feel like part of the fun in the process can be how it changes. This feels new since the other two scripts I worked on had source materials and historical details I was mucking around with. The title is something that has been rattling around in my notebook, initially as a potential poem title that has been rattling in my head (it still feels too new to share, but I'll talk more about it later as it develops).
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