Should Poems Have a Title?

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash

If you read a lot of poetry, you will notice that there are many poems out there without a title. In fact, a very famous poet, Emily Dickinson, did not title any of her poems. The choice to title poems is up to the author. It is the readers right to have an opinion on whether a title should be placed or not. I am of the belief that the choice of titling a poem is a matter of artistic expression.

There was a time in my life when I titled some of my poems and left others without a title. Now I title everything. The reason for that is because, submitting a poem for publication, I got rejected. The reason they gave me was that they could not figure out what the poem was about. I realized that adding a title would add clarity and add a little extra something to the poem. I titled the rejected piece, "It's All About The Sky," and don't remember if I submitted it for publication anywhere else.

I also choose to add titles to my poems for easier organization and recognition. When writing many pieces, it is helpful to have an indicator of which piece is being talked about in a conversation or in a paper. It also helps in poetry collection books. It can be argued that a title to a poem is unnecessary for organization. When a poem has no title, its first line becomes the title. That has been the case with Dickson's poems in my English books. Still, I think titles are beneficial for clarities sake.

I have run into the problem of giving some of my works the same title. It will be quite a project going through my writings and figuring which titles should be changed, or if I am willing to have some of my poetry titled the same. I have so many poems that giving every piece a different title might be unattainable. It is possible that I may choose to have the first line of my poem become the new title. If this is the case, I will write that one line down twice. There's nothing wrong with a little repetition in poetry.

 

It is kind of weird that some poets choose to go without. An author would probably not write a book without a title. That would be weird. It may be that some poets don't title their poetry for the very sake of weirdness. That's fine. Titling poetry is a choice. I have nothing against authors who choose not to title their poems. I, however, now choose to title mine.

Photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash

 

They Left Out the Title

Empty words expected to be gleaned through inference.
But how can we tell when the line before and the line after is left blank?
It puts a new meaning to 'reading in between the lines'.
Reading the words after blank spaces,
our hearts may be captivated
and our creativity may spell the subject out.
Our own interpretation.
That must be the hope of those who left the title without.

'Remembering What Was Called Country' Teaser

 

Natasha McKinley, (formerly called Natasha Gruss,) reads part of her #poem "Remembering What Was Called Country" from her #poetry #book "Un-Clenched Emotion". This is from the Look Inside feature on #amazon. The poem cuts off so Natasha only #reads her poem to that part. In order to get this book, in print or for your #kindle, visit Natasha's #author page at: https://www.amazon.com/Natasha-Gruss/e/B01LZE8CKO This book is on #kindleunlimited 

I read 2 other poems, (Thunderstorm and The Sea,) from my book on my YouTube Channel at: https://youtube.com/@natashamckinley1387

There are also 3 more poems that I read on my Channel that will not be published elsewhere. They are called My World, Ocean Haiku, and Untitled Coffee Poem. You can also view these poems and read others I have written on this blog. To make it easy for you to find the page, it's at: https://authornatashagruss.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

I hope you enjoy!

Thunderstorm

https://youtu.be/67HAVaT4VZ0

 

What to do for Poetry Month

It is the month of April, and the month of April is poetry month.  There are many things people can do besides write poetry.  Most obviously, they can read poetry.  Of course, you can read the classics like Shakespeare or Dickon's, but you can read current day poets too, (like me).  If you read a poet's work on your kindle, they would appreciate a review or at least a star rating.  All you have to do is click a star.  I decided to read a poetry book for this April.  

This month I decided to read Misha Collins poetry book: "Some Things I Still Can't Tell You."  Misha Collins is not famous for being a poet.  He is famous for playing the character Castielle (an Angel), on the T.V. show Supernatural.  I was very excited when I found out he was into poetry.  I saw him recite some on my Instagram account, thought it was great, and asked my husband for his book for Christmas. My husband got for it me!  Misha Collins is a very good poet, and I am very glad that I have his writing in my possession.

If you are a poet, and are published with Amazon, you can give your book away for free for up to five days.  You won't get any royalties when you do this, but you might spread your work around the world a little more.  I chose to give my book away for 3 days at the beginning this month.  Four people took advantage of the offer.  I may give "Un-Clenched Emotion" more free days in following months.  It is on Kindle Unlimited, so if you have that, it is always free.  I found out that I do get royalties if someone buys my book that way.

Naturally, if you would like to, you can write your own poetry in the month of April.  There are many poetry challenges online where they ask you to write a poem a day for the whole month of April.  I have done this in years past, but did not do a poem a day this year.  I did write a few poems this month, which I plan to submit to publication.  They are speculative poems, poems that follow a fantasy or science fiction theme.  I have a title for the other poetry chapbook, (or perhaps whole book), this time, and some more of this book to put together. The theme for this book is the Seasons. I still have a long way to go to get this finished.

I challenge you to read and/or write poetry this month.  Promote what you have already written, or write a review for an author you have read.

How to Read Poetry

It's been awhile since I added a blog post.  I have however, been working on my blog page.  Some may have noticed that I added a page to this blog called "The Written Poetry of Natasha Gruss."  It's very hard to see when you go to the home page of my blog, just a small link on the right hand bar under the pages heading.  I will post the link here so you can find it easier.  It's: https://authornatashagruss.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
While it says "written poetry", I also added YouTube Videos of me reading my poems.  I've been thinking about writing a blog post on how to read poetry for awhile, but I didn't want to do it until I was able to give samples of me doing it myself, out loud.  When posting the videos, here is the one that had the most likes when I shared it:

What to Pay Attention to While Reading Poetry

The above is an example of how to read poetry out loud.  There are two ways to read poetry: silently and out loud.  When you write poetry, it is really important to pay attention to how the poetry would sound if someone were to read your poem out loud.  Even if they read it silently, they may hear inside their head how it sounds.  There's not much to say about how to read a poem silently, it's just done.  Pay attention to punctuation and line breaks.  Like in regular grammar, a comma or period indicates a pause in the material.  Less known is that at the end of a line of poetry there should also be a pause.   Poetry can also have less conventional grammar like odd spacing, it should be self explanatory that extra spacing indicates a pause.  Emphasis should also be placed on capitalized words when reading poetry.  These things need a lot of attention when you decide to read a poem out loud.

What to Do When Reading A Poem Out Loud

So why would you put a voice to a poem?  Many people have been called on in class to read it, and they don't have a choice.  This would normally be someone else's poem, but it may be your own.  You may decide to go to a poetry reading and want to share your poem with a group.  I have experience doing both of these things.  I've been to many poetry readings through out my life, and they have all been well received.  If you can, read through a poem before you speak it.  Read through it as many times as you can so you can get a feel for it and what you are going to perform.

When sharing your poem with your voice, one of the most important things to do is to make sure your voice is loud enough to be heard.  For some people this comes naturally.  Some people need practice.  If you need practice making your voice louder, you may try speaking over the sound of a fan and see how well you can hear yourself.  Also look at the back of a room and pretend like you are speaking to someone there.  While you want to be heard, you probably don't want to shout unless your poem calls for it.

If you are going to read a poem, a good idea is to stand up and go to the front of the room.  Sometimes, like in a classroom setting, we don't get the opportunity to do this.  A sitting position can work as well, but make sure you sit up straight.  In the Poems "My World" and "Untitled Coffee Poem," I was sitting while I read the poem, but I was doing a video with a camera close to my face, so it was easy to be heard.  In my Haiku, that begins "Slip, Slip to the waves" I was standing.

Untitled Coffee Poem

Memorizing a Poem

Finally, if you are going to read a poem you have written out loud, the best thing to do before 'reading' it is to memorize it.  I have been to poetry competitions where everyone had the poem they were "reading" memorized and performed it memorized.  This is by far the best way to experience a poem.  However, if you are like me, you've written too much stuff to memorize it all.  I have sold some of my poetry, and I have felt funny not knowing my exact wording when the person has recited my words back a loud to me.  Excited that someone wanted to memorize my work though.  In the videos I did, only the Untitled Coffee Poem was memorized when I recorded it.  The Haiku that begins "Slip" I read while recording, but since it was so short, I did have it memorized.  "My World" was read and not memorized, and yet it was well received.  Memorization isn't mandatory, merely a
suggestion.

Ocean Haiku

Things to Remember

Poetry can be read silently or out loud.  It can be memorized.  It is important to read through poems before performing them and to pay attention to grammar like line breaks, odd spacing, and capitalization.  Volume and posture is important when reading a poem aloud.  I hope this post helps anyone if they encounter a situation in which they need to read a poem.

The Benefits of Reading Poetry

Sometimes people are interested in poetry and sometimes they’re not. The interest or lack of interest can be found in both the reading and writing aspect.  It’s a shame more people aren’t interested in poetry.  Following are some of the benefits to both reading and writing poems.

Reading poetry allows people to relax and learn new things.  It can help with recognizing emotions within one’s self and make the readers notice emotions in others better.  Sometimes reading poetry makes people feel smarter, allowing them to get correct answers on quiz shows like Jeopardy.  Sometimes new words are found, and that also helps to better the mind.  After looking at some poems, one may find that they describe things better when in normal conversation.  If people want to learn many new things, they may go a step further and read about the author.  This can help with learning some historical facts that were previously unknown to the reader.  Another benefit of reading poetry is that it can be therapeutic since it allows one to concentrate which can be a form of meditation.  With so many benefits of reading poetry, I’m not sure why people don’t necessarily like doing it, I find it wonderful.  I highly recommend reading about different subjects so that at least new things can be learned.

For some people, like me, writing poetry is also relaxing.  For others, it can be stressful.  However, writing poetry has many of the same benefits of reading poetry.  When coming up with ideas, new things often present themselves to writers.  New words are thought up and discovered.  Writing about emotions really helps authors know emotions in others.  Reading about authors can help the creator of a poem not only enhance their learning, but allow the aspiring poet to come up with new inspiration.  There are some other added benefits to writing poetry that people may not necessarily get if they are only reading it. Writing is definitely a creative outlet.  Completing a poem can be an ego boost once the person writing it realizes their creativity has helped them make a new creation.  Creating something worthwhile makes a person feel proud of themselves.  If a poem is written in a certain style, skills other than writing may be used.  The most obvious one is coming up with a rhyme scheme.  Other skills may be used as well though, for example; math skills.  Syllables, lines, and stanza may need to be counted.  Especially if something like a sonnet or haiku is being written.  There are obviously many benefits to writing poetry.

For some, writing comes hard, and it is not relaxing to them.  It causes stress, which is counterproductive.  If this is the case, there is no shame in avoiding writing.  Reading poetry is relatively simple though, so there really is no excuse to avoid reading it.  Both writing and reading poems can allow people to find relaxation and learn many new skills like learning new words and new information.  Poetry is clearly beneficial.