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Poetry Book Title Ideas: Tips For Poets
Writing a killer title for your poetry book can be challenging. The title helps capture the reader’s attention. So, it contributes massively to a poetry book’s success. That’s why many poets spend more time thinking about poetry book title ideas. Some create a dozen titles for one poetry book to pick the most captivating one.
However, a book title is crucial. But it shouldn’t prevent you from writing your first poetry novel . In this post, we have outlined ways you can write killer title ideas. Keep reading to learn more!
Table of Contents
Are Poetry Book Titles Important?
Of course, the answer is yes. Your collection’s title may be the determining factor whether your collection will become a Best Seller or not. Editor E. Haldeman, in the book ‘First Hundred Million,’ explains that changing just the book title can rocket a book from selling 6,000 copies a year to 50,000 copies a year.
In other words, the title of your collection may make or Mar your success once published. It does not necessarily mean that books that did not do well in the market were poorly titled. It could also be a result of other factors. These things happen.
Why Is The Title Important?
Your book title is your reader’s first impression. It is what people see first. It is what they will remember when they go to a bookstore to make a purchase. It is what they will recommend to others when asked for recommendations.
They say it’s the cover art that is important. While this may be true, the title is just as important. Readers may come across a title and say, ‘oh this sounds interesting, I should probably get it.’ It is why it’s essential to choose a title that is catchy enough to arouse curiosity.
Elements Of A Good Poetry Book Title
To know a good title for a collection, the title must be:
Having a unique title is one way of getting readers to buy your book. Imagine walking into a store, and you come across the title ‘At the Threshold of a sane mad man.’ You will want to find out more about the book.
Consider also titles like Zen and the moving Mountains, Forever in two seconds, etc. They are unique titles that arouse curiosity.
Unique titles capture the essence of a book without giving out what’s inside. Like the example I gave above, one can easily understand that the poet may not necessarily be insane, but a lot is going on in the poet’s head.
Arouse curiosity in a reader’s mind:
Everyone wants their work to stand out. In other to achieve this, you have to choose a title that catches people’s attention. Your title must be such that when a reader comes across it, they are tempted to find out what’s inside.
Take, for instance, Maya Angelou’s I know why the caged birds sing’. The poem in itself does not talk about birds but slavery. However, the title is enough to draw the attention of readers. Your title should be able to evoke questions of why what, or how.
Some other titles that may arouse curiosity are: When we die; why we struck; In the heart of the sea, Behind the humourless laughter; I see the questions in your eyes, etc.
Easy to remember:
Readers prefer titles they can easily refer to in their discussions. Something they can remember in a heartbeat while in conversation with others.
In trying to be unique, try not to choose a title that will confuse your readers. Sometimes long titles or strange words will be difficult to remember. Take Rupi Kaur’sMilk and Honey’ for example. It’s simple and easy to remember.
Authenticity:
Some of the most engaging poetry titles we know today are authentic. It is because the title came naturally to the poet. Titles are a mirror into the mind and intention of a poem. Only a poet knows what influences their poetry. So when they choose a title from the heart, it is more appealing.
Things That Can Influence A Poetry Book Title
The title of the collection may be influenced by a person. In most cases, it could be the lover of a poet. Or, someone who influenced the poet. It could also be a stranger who the poet met at one time in their journey. A good example is Siren’s Secret, Mr. Bumblebee’s Gold shoe, Aurora’s Diary, and Amina Bin Hasan.
There’s no denying the power and effect certain places have over humans. You can title a collection after a place where you had so many memories. It can also have titles after a place where you found inspiration to write. There are so many reasons why this happens and is ideal.
Where your poem has strong settings, you can explore that as well. Here’s is few examples: The desert queen of Saharan Africa, Love in Vegas, A day in Ibiza; My Caribbean beauty; Under the Aegis of the Roman Lord, etc.
Events or Circumstances
Sometimes, people come up with book titles based on what is going on in their lives at the moment. It may also be an event that they witnessed. It must not be personal to them. Examples are Children of War and Anger, A time of Bliss, Life with the fugitives, etc.
Most poetry collections do not contain one theme. Most times, there are so many themes explored in the collection. However, where the general theme is similar, it is easy to find a title befitting the collection.
In a collection where the general theme is love or romance, it is best if the title reflects the theme. For example, ‘ Under your arms of Ecstasy.’ It doesn’t take much for a reader to know about love and romance. The same things apply to sadness or death.
Forms Of Poetry Book Titles
The title of a poem may take many forms. There are simply no rules. We are in that age where poetry has taken many forms and shapes. Also, modern poets have broken nearly every rule of poetry. The same thing can happen with the title. Here are various forms the title of your poetry book can take.
- Single or monosyllabic title : picking a title with a single word can be a trick. If you don’t get it right, a reader may drop the book once they see the title. If you are going to take this route, ensure the word is catchy enough. Examples of such words include Untamed; Wildfire, Enchanted; etc.
- Poetic Language: These are poetic titles. Merely pronouncing it gives the idea that the book is a poetry collection. Some examples: The fault in our stars, Of Whom the Bell Tolls, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Under the Daffodils, Tales from the Taliban, and so on.
- Thematic Title: As mentioned earlier, the theme of your poetry collection can influence your book title. Themes like war, vengeance, hate, love, strife, darkness can influence the title. Please take a look at some of them: Daisy’s Dilemma, Collected poems of Autumn, Things fall apart, A Midsummer night’s dream. Some of the examples are titles for novels , but they can also apply to poetry. It all depends on the central theme of your collection.
- Emotional or Evocative titles: Some poetic titles go for the emotional jugular. These are titles that, when a reader comes across them, evokes strong emotions. Some examples are; All the words I couldn’t say, The day I died, Songs of sorrow.
- Wordplay: You can use wordplays to create titles. Consider Pride and Prejudice, Born to die, Of mine and Men, Of shadows and light, to mention but a few.
- Opposing words : using words and opposites in your title can be captivating. It is because contracts evoke curiosity. Readers want to know why you picked the topic. Some examples are love and hate, The light in the darkness, Strife and Harmony, Day and Night, Yesterday and Today, etc.
- Quotes from the book : perhaps this is one of the most common forms of poetry Book Title. They are simply picking a word or phrase from one of the poems in the book works. For instance, Maya Angelou’s collection ‘ And Still I rise’ was the title of one poem in her book. She still used it to title a whole collection. There are also titles like To Kill a Mocking Bird; Their Eyes were Watching God etc. The list is endless.
- Action words: These are titles that use strong words. They are evocative. Gone Girl, A Game of Thrones, Songs of fire, and Ice sets off tension.
- Famous sayings: you can also use popular sayings to title your book. These are phrases with deep meanings which make people think. Examples of such sayings are; Till death do us part, Forever and Always, To be or not to be. Unconventional titles – being unconventional draws attention. Unconventional titles make readers say what? Take, for instance, Thursday died yesterday, Pineapple Grenade or Do birds dream of Computers. These are unconventional titles because of the contrast.
How To Come Up With A Title
Brainstorm: The first thing to do is to rack your head. Come up with every possible idea that comes to mind. No matter how ridiculous a title sounds to you, don’t dismiss it yet. Go through the poems you have already written. You might be surprised what you come up with in the process.
You may pick titles from song lyrics, contents in a book, a line of your poem, and popular phrases. There are so many ideas around. It would be best if you explored them.
Write down your titles: It is advisable to write down your titles immediately an idea comes to mind. Make a long list so that you will have plenty of options to choose from later.
Eliminate: After you have made your lists start eliminating them one after the other. Remove the ones you feel don’t make sense. Follow with one that may confuse potential readers. Narrow the list down to five. At this point, it should be easy to pick one.
Ask for help: There are many people to ask for help. Sometimes people have fantastic ideas that may come to them, but those ideas are not useful. Ask your friends and family to make suggestions. Also, ask other writers and poets in your circle.
Research : The internet has made things very easy for us these days. There are many suggestions you can get from the internet. Look at your favorite authors, check other poets unfamiliar to you. But be mindful that you don’t use a similar title. Sometimes you may come up with a title without realizing you have come across it before.
Computer-generated titles: This has become a thing among artists, writers, poets, and creatives. There are software and apps which can help you create a title. However, this is not always advisable as you may pick a title similar to another person’s work.
Things To Avoid While Choosing A Title
As much as you want to explore every avenue, there are some things you should consider.
Avoid using identical titles:
You don’t want readers to be confused when searching the net and coming with different books with identical titles. It was an issue with Tomi Adeyemi’s ‘ Children of Blood and Bone’ and Nora Robert’s “ Of Blood and Bones.” Such conflicts will confuse readers and discourage them from getting your book.
Derogatory words or Gutter language:
Nobody likes vulgarism. Not especially poetry readers. Poetry is meant to be soothing, entertaining, humorous, or educational. Shocking or explicit words may grab attention but not the kind of attention you want.
Stick with your genre:
There’s no point titling a book ‘the Devil’s advocate’ when you are writing a romance. Or using ‘ Fair maiden’ for a collection whose theme revolves around war and chaos. As much as possible, let the title reflect the content of the book.
Negative themes:
There’s no need to provoke people’s sensibilities with your titles. Titles such as “How to kill a negro”, “I don’t like ugly women” are unnecessary. Try to be creative without being offensive.
Note, some titles even inspire an author to write. The title may come to mind first before you start to write. So whenever a catchy phrase or cool title comes to mind, be sure to write it down. Here’s a list of possible ideas to use for your book title:
An Arabian night
Beyond the veil
Under the starry night
The coconut leaves song.
The girl behind the shadows
To love and to hold
It happened in Summer.
The Winters solstice
Surrender, or we all burn.
The night they struck
Silence in the Storm
We are all gods
The one who could not speak
A mother’s Karma
You will like it here.
Venus’ thunderbolt
To be or not to be.
The list is not exhaustive. You can find and choose your titles from the weirdest places or funny reasons. The most important thing it has meaning, and it’s captivating.
The title is one of the most important marketing decisions you will make for your book. There are so many good books that may never become known due to a wrong title. Your title should make your readers curious. It must have an element of intrigue.
Finally, finding the best title for your poetry collection doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be one of the easiest things you do before publishing. Find out what the heart of your poem is. What idea or message do you want your readers to get? The title will come once you have figured this out.
About the Author
CJ grew up admiring books. His family owned a small bookstore throughout his early childhood, and he would spend weekends flipping through book after book, always sure to read the ones that looked the most interesting. Not much has changed since then, except now some of those interesting books he picks off the shelf were designed by his company!
How Do Poets Choose a Title For Their Books?
A title is a tricky thing — trickier still for a collection of already titled things. For a collection of poems, can an individual poem’s title speak to the entire book? What about one piece of one poem — can that speak to the whole? Should a title say what hasn’t yet been said by the poems? Should it focus one’s attention? Should it capture a tone or mood? Should it be long or short? What makes a title memorable? Why does a title fit, and how do you know?
The four books featured here are books I’ve been anticipating for years, and I so admire their titles. obscenity for the advancement of poetry flirts with the technical and leaves you wondering, Will it really be obscene? (The answer is, Yes, it really will.) Some Beheadings shakes the gravity of beheadings with the offhandedness of some, telling you instantly that the ground ahead will be uneven and arresting. Some Say the Lark suggests a communal speaker at odds another communal speaker, and so also suggests, an ambiguity towards truth, and towards knowing itself. Beast Meridian collapses the space between the locality of a border and the vastness of a meridian — well, maybe not before you’ve read some of the poems, but once you begin the book, you will not be able to read the word meridian on the cover without considering borders.
And these are only my thoughts on these titles. In this sampler, I’m thrilled to present the authors’ thoughts on their titles, alongside a poem from each of these books — the poems where their titles appear.
Jennifer Chang: The title is from the aubade scene in Romeo and Juliet . Act III, Scene V.
I had long thought I was writing about discourse. To write a poem in English—or to write an American poem—involves entering into existing discourses while trying to make new ones. Plus, so many poems grew out of conversations I’d been having with lifelong friends and friends in passing, with strangers and teachers (formal and provisional), and most of all with women. Conversations, like poems, arise out of inquiry, deepen with detail and story, and digress. For me, conversation is one of the ways I think and can be remarkably creative. Rarely does a good conversation resolve, but it often leads to clarity, shifts in perspective, or a new language for thinking through an old question.
When Juliet insists it is the nightingale and not the lark singing, she isn’t merely engaging in erotic discourse. She’s conjecturing a different world, one where her love is not illicit and she is free to determine her fate. She explains: “Some say the lark makes sweet division, / This doth not so, for she divideth us.” This is a critique, and that “some” pivots on a fundamental doubt about conventional thought. “Some” people make a lot of decisions that curtail our freedom. “Some” people have decided all the rules before we’ve had our say.
As a title, then, Some Say the Lark highlights Juliet’s romantic imagination as a critical imagination. There’s a lot of freedom to her willful misreading of birdsong. It’s a powerful creative act, and it’s an expression of her authority.
Episteme 12
two radish leaves tell me spring has come
I sat in the nightfield to better articulate the stars I pretended to hate the stars
now rain reading me well
pine quills on the western path
the hemlock clarity of the grove the first
radishes of the season distant traffic
outpacing my thoughts I have one thought
noise-wrecked a Socratic question why jack-in-the-pulpit
in the tyranny of ailanthus trees
I bite the bitter root of love
I unstitch rain from waxflowers monkshoods if loving were
the august truth white rage hard flesh the skylark
is more hardy than the nightingale
Vanessa Angélica Villareal: Beast Meridian took many forms before it became what it is. Part memoir of the traumatic experiences of racism and assimilation from my childhood and adolescence, part ancestral bestiary, part reclamation fairy tale, one comment I got was that this book was over-ambitious, was actually two books, wanted to do too much (“too much” being a note I’ve gotten my whole life). But I knew it had to stay together the way it was, that the cohesion of these three parts was important to its arc, to its way of writing its way out of trauma and confusion, consulting family and ancestry for stories and guidance, and finding its way back, if in an unexpected way, to wholeness. I wrote this book with my intuition, which is to say I would enter a sort of trance and let the language pour out of a dark, churning center in me where I felt something was being stored—a memory, a presence, an image, a place. The language that emerged was a kind of somatic dream language, which I would find later to uncannily line up with stories about my family I’d never heard before, or indigenous words or concepts, or images I’d long forgotten. The original idea I had for my book cover was an elementary school photo of me, torn down the middle to reveal a dark ocean of stars in the tear, symbolizing trauma, the border, the feminine and indigenous practices of looking to the stars for guidance during difficult times. The title poem, “Beast Meridian,” aims to illustrate and give language to that starry place I was writing from: the tear that trauma and borders make in the body that is also the way into intuitive memory, into inherited survival, into suspended temporality to find consolation, wholeness, reunion, return.
kathryn l. pringle: The title of the book was born in a workshop led by Stacy Doris several years ago. She asked us to “write the obscene.” When I took this on the only way I could convince myself to write to the obscene was to take it on faith that Stacy was fostering my work by not only challenging my relationship to obscenity but also my relationship to poetry. At the time (and maybe most of the time?) my work was more abstracted and focused on systems and agency than narrative, and I wasn’t sure how I could fit the obscene into it and evoke a reader’s emotions on the gut level (which I think is pretty critical to obscenity). Thus, to remind myself that this was to further my work as a poet and also that it was an assignment and therefore very much like a prescription from my doctor, Obscenity for the Advancement of Poetry became the title for my obscenity work.
So, obscenity for the advancement of poetry: 3 is literally the third poem in a series of sketches interrogating the obscene. Each poem in the book works towards the notion that obscenity is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I think obscenity: 3 is one of the more disturbing poems in the book. I’m an animal lover and very shaken by the mistreatment and abuse of animals. But more than that, I think this poem questions the reader’s relationship to otherness: other creatures, other humans, and other ways of being in the world by introducing gender fluidity. Some readers might find the dog’s name to be more disturbing than its condition, which I also find incredibly disturbing.
Submerged Revelations in “Things We Found When the Water Went Down”
obscenity for the advancement of poetry: 3
of the 4-legged:
he had over 150 engorged ticks covering his dog body by the time they found him. ticks with half-an-inch of puss covering their black bodies. they were sucking him to death. the dog was a boy named Sheila. he could no longer move without wanting to die. snout covered with pus covered ticks. long german shepherd snout. they were sucking the life out of him. he lived in the basement. his mother lived on the 3rd floor. it was queens. or flushing. she didn’t notice anything was wrong. he was 30% underweight. he was living in a basement that in california would be called a crawl space. he had fleas. he was going to die. the dog named Sheila. they found him. they had to remove every tick with tweezers. they put them on butcher paper and they butchered the ticks of Sheila. the blood of Sheila popped out of their asses.
Sheila moved to the village after that.
Aditi Machado: I like short, stark titles that are nevertheless intrepid—sometimes brazen: by Of Things (Michael Donhauser, tr. Nick Hoff & Andrew Joron), do you mean to write of all things? Do you mean to tell us the fundamental thingness of things? Such titles—Etel Adnan’s Sea and Fog , Brian Teare’s Sight Map , Paul Celan/Pierre Joris’s incredible coinages ( Breathturn , Threadsuns )—imply grandeur, amplitude, seriousness of purpose. They (Geoffrey Hill’s The Triumph of Love !) might even invite scorn. But for me the titles do more because the books do—less. What I mean is, the books themselves are humble in their desire to articulate. It’s impossible, they seem to acknowledge, to write monographs and theses. But it is possible to witness, to make these curious attempts at study, comprehension and comprehensiveness held in tension. The grandeur of which is, I feel, an erotic gesture.
Maybe all that’s behind my hope for Some Beheadings . Practically speaking, I picked the phrase from one of the poems in the book (kindly included here by Sarah). I learned this method from one of my teachers, Carl Phillips—a method that endures as a way of reading. As though the poet were offering a lens through which to read the text, which would be very different had they chosen a different word or phrase (my other options: “Prospekt,” “Overthistle”), and which, as fragment, could easily be ignored. Later I found that Some Beheadings realizes a number of connections important to me—allusive (“Ozymandias”), philological (c.f. “to capitulate”), political (what we bear to witness), and philosophical (the notion of displacing the head as the seat of the intellect). Someone (I don’t recall who) told me the word “some” was cruel in the context of beheadings and I agree. So that’s the other hope: many possibilities.
The Speech:
I spoke as in a wheel spokes.
Supported the curvature, I supported the ongoingness,
the goingson, some beheadings, I
& the fascist in I on the dusty road
reinventing.
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50 Of The Best Poetry Books From Authors of Contemporary Works
There seems to be a bit of an aversion to poetry in our culture. Something happens to us when we’re in school—we’re given Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost, and we don’t really feel like we can relate so easily to it. Then we’re told to dissect the meaning of every line, told to identify the meter and rhyme scheme, told to break down the poem like it’s a math equation. Somehow, in these lessons, poetry begins to feel far away from us. It begins to feel maybe elitist, or stuffy, or too difficult to understand. And like many things do, it becomes something to study, rather than something to enjoy. I, personally, don’t ever remember being asked how a poem made me feel, or what I liked about it.
But the world of poetry is vibrant and thriving, filled with voices that seem to reach out and take our hand, that let us know we’re understood, we’re not alone. And that’s what poetry can do. A great poem can help us put words to feelings we couldn’t explain before, or help us empathize with something new, or reaffirm our place in the world. And a great poem can touch that lonely, dark part of our hearts and wake us up, bring us out of the cold.
If you’re looking to read more poetry, here are some of the best poetry books from modern authors.
Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón
“A book of bravado and introspection, of 21st century feminist swagger and harrowing terror and loss, this fourth collection considers how we build our identities out of place and human contact—tracing in intimate detail the various ways the speaker’s sense of self both shifts and perseveres as she moves from New York City to rural Kentucky, loses a dear parent, ages past the capriciousness of youth, and falls in love. Limón has often been a poet who wears her heart on her sleeve, but in these extraordinary poems that heart becomes a “huge beating genius machine” striving to embrace and understand the fullness of the present moment. “I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying,” the poet writes. Building on the legacies of forebears such as Frank O’Hara, Sharon Olds, and Mark Doty, Limón’s work is consistently generous and accessible—though every observed moment feels complexly thought, felt, and lived.”
Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
“With inquisitive flair, Aimee Nezhukumatathil creates a thorough registry of the earth’s wonderful and terrible magic. In her fourth collection of poetry, she studies forms of love as diverse and abundant as the ocean itself. She brings to life a father penguin, a C-section scar, and the Niagara Falls with a powerful force of reverence for life and living things. With an encyclopedic range of subjects and unmatched sincerity, Oceanic speaks to each reader as a cooperative part of the earth, an extraordinary neighborhood to which we all belong.”
My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet
“ My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter is poet Aja Monet’s ode to mothers, daughters, and sisters—the tiny gods who fight to change the world.
Textured with the sights and sounds of growing up in East New York in the nineties, to school on the South Side of Chicago, all the way to the olive groves of Palestine, these stunning poems tackle racism, sexism, genocide, displacement, heartbreak, and grief, but also love, motherhood, spirituality, and Black joy.”
Together and By Ourselves by Alex Dimitrov
“ Together and by Ourselves, Alex Dimitrov’s second book of poems, takes on broad existential questions and the reality of our current moment: being seemingly connected to one another, yet emotionally alone. Through a collage aesthetic and a multiplicity of voices, these poems take us from coast to coast, New York to LA, and toward uneasy questions about intimacy, love, death, and the human spirit. Dimitrov critiques America’s long-lasting obsessions with money, celebrity, and escapism—whether in our personal, professional, or family lives. What defines a life? Is love ever enough? Who are we when together and who are we by ourselves? These questions echo throughout the poems, which resist easy answers. The voice is both heartfelt and skeptical, bruised yet playful, and always deeply introspective.”
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
“In this ferocious and tender debut, Chen Chen investigates inherited forms of love and family—the strained relationship between a mother and son, the cost of necessary goodbyes—all from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Holding all accountable, this collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and abundant joy that come with charting one’s own path in identity, life, and love.”
Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
“Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality―the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood―and a diagnosis of HIV positive. “Some of us are killed / in pieces,” Smith writes, “some of us all at once.” Don’t Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America―“Dear White America”―where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.”
Beastiary by Donika Kelly
“Across this remarkable first book are encounters with animals, legendary beasts, and mythological monsters—half human and half something else. Donika Kelly’s Bestiary is a catalogue of creatures—from the whale and ostrich to the pegasus and chimera to the centaur and griffin. Among them too are poems of love, self-discovery, and travel, from “Out West” to “Back East.” Lurking in the middle of this powerful and multifaceted collection is a wrenching sequence that wonders just who or what is the real monster inside this life of survival and reflection. Selected and with an introduction by the National Book Award winner Nikky Finney, Bestiary questions what makes us human, what makes us whole.”
Milk by Dorothea Lasky
“In her latest collection, Dorothea Lasky brings her signature style—a deeply felt and uncanny word-music—to all matters of creativity, from poetry and the invention of new language to motherhood and the production of new life. At once a personal document as it is an occult text, Milk investigates overused paradigms of what it means to be a creator and encapsulates its horrors and joys—setting fire to the enigma that drives the vital force that enables poems, love, and life to happen.”
Lessons on Expulsion by Erika L. Sánchez
“Poet, novelist, and essayist Erika L. Sánchez’s powerful debut poetry collection explores what it means to live on both sides of the border―the border between countries, languages, despair and possibility, and the living and the dead. Sánchez tells her own story as the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants and as part of a family steeped in faith, work, grief, and expectations. The poems confront sex, shame, race, and an America roiling with xenophobia, violence, and laws of suspicion and suppression. With candor and urgency, and with the unblinking eyes of a journalist, Sánchez roves from the individual life into the lives of sex workers, narco-traffickers, factory laborers, artists, and lovers. What emerges is a powerful, multifaceted portrait of survival. Lessons on Expulsion is the first book by a vibrant, essential new writer now breaking into the national literary landscape.”
Holy Moly Carry Me by Erika Meitner
“Erika Meitner’s fifth collection of poetry plumbs human resilience and grit in the face of disaster, loss, and uncertainty. These narrative poems take readers into the heart of southern Appalachia―its highways and strip malls and gun culture, its fragility and danger―as the speaker wrestles with what it means to be the only Jewish family in an Evangelical neighborhood and the anxieties of raising one white son and one black son amidst racial tensions and school lockdown drills. With a firm hand on the pulse of the uncertainty at the heart of 21st century America and a refusal to settle for easy answers, Meitner’s poems embrace life in an increasingly fractured society and never stop asking what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.”
Night by Etel Adnan
“Etel Adnan’s evocative new book places night at its center to unearth memories held in the body, the spirit and the landscape. This striking new book continues Adnan’s meditative observation and inquiry into the experiences of her remarkable life.”
Electric Arches by Dr. Eve L. Ewing
“Blending stark realism with the surreal and fantastic, Eve L. Ewing’s narrative takes us from the streets of 1990s Chicago to an unspecified future, deftly navigating the boundaries of space, time, and reality. Ewing imagines familiar figures in magical circumstances―blues legend Koko Taylor is a tall-tale hero; LeBron James travels through time and encounters his teenage self. She identifies everyday objects―hair moisturizer, a spiral notebook―as precious icons. Her visual art is spare, playful, and poignant―a cereal box decoder ring that allows the wearer to understand what Black girls are saying; a teacher’s angry, subversive message scrawled on the chalkboard. Electric Arches invites fresh conversations about race, gender, the city, identity, and the joy and pain of growing up.”
If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar
“From a co-creator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls comes an imaginative, soulful debut poetry that collection captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America. Orphaned as a child, Fatimah Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. These poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while also exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests itself in our relationships. In experimental forms and language both lyrical and raw, Asghar seamlessly braids together marginalized people’s histories with her own understanding of identity, place, and belonging.”
Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2017 by Frank Bidart
“Gathered together, the poems of Frank Bidart perform one of the most remarkable transmutations of the body into language in contemporary literature. His pages represent the human voice in all its extreme registers, whether it’s that of the child-murderer Herbert White, the obsessive anorexic Ellen West, the tormented genius Vaslav Nijinsky, or the poet’s own. And in that embodiment is a transgressive empathy, one that recognizes our wild appetites, the monsters, the misfits, the misunderstood among us and inside us. Few writers have so willingly ventured to the dark places of the human psyche and allowed themselves to be stripped bare on the page with such candor and vulnerability. Over the past half century, Bidart has done nothing less than invent a poetics commensurate with the chaos and appetites of our experience.”
Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen
“ Not Here is a flight plan for escape and a map for navigating home; a queer Vietnamese American body in confrontation with whiteness, trauma, family, and nostalgia; and a big beating heart of a book. Nguyen’s poems ache with loneliness and desire and the giddy terrors of allowing yourself to hope for love, and revel in moments of connection achieved.”
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
“ Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear―they all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence: a newly married couple, Alfonso and Sonya, expecting a child; the brash Momma Galya, instigating the insurgency from her puppet theater; and Galya’s girls, heroically teaching signing by day and by night luring soldiers one by one to their deaths behind the curtain. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, Ilya Kaminsky’s long-awaited Deaf Republic confronts our time’s vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.”
There Should Be Flowers by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
“Espinoza’s debut is a searing interrogation of the world and the self at once. Here, the body is a fixation—as if to look away from it, even briefly, is to risk having it erased. As such, this is a book of unblinking human preservation, and how we trespass ourselves seeking safer spaces. “There is nothing I love more than an honest storm,” Espinoza writes. There Should Be Flowers is a storm to ravage and rearrange us from our crushing certainties. This book doesn’t need a blurb. It simply needs to be read.” – Ocean Vuong
Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora
“Javier Zamora was nine years old when he traveled unaccompanied 4,000 miles, across multiple borders, from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with his parents. This dramatic and hope-filled poetry debut humanizes the highly charged and polarizing rhetoric of border-crossing; assesses borderland politics, race, and immigration on a profoundly personal level; and simultaneously remembers and imagines a birth country that’s been left behind. Through an unflinching gaze, plainspoken diction, and a combination of Spanish and English, Unaccompanied crosses rugged terrain where families are lost and reunited, coyotes lead migrants astray, and ‘the thin white man let us drink from a hose / while pointing his shotgun.'”
Eye Level by Jenny Xie
“Jenny Xie’s award-winning debut, Eye Level , takes us far and near, to Phnom Penh, Corfu, Hanoi, New York, and elsewhere, as we travel closer and closer to the acutely felt solitude that centers this searching, moving collection. Animated by a restless inner questioning, these poems meditate on the forces that moor the self and set it in motion, from immigration to travel to estranging losses and departures. The sensual worlds here―colors, smells, tastes, and changing landscapes―bring to life questions about the self as seer and the self as seen. As Xie writes, “Me? I’m just here in my traveler’s clothes, trying on each passing town for size.” Her taut, elusive poems exult in a life simultaneously crowded and quiet, caught in between things and places, and never quite entirely at home. Xie is a poet of extraordinary perception―both to the tangible world and to “all that is untouchable as far as the eye can reach.”
The New Testament by Jericho Brown
“In his second collection, The New Testament, Brown treats disease and love and lust between men, with a gentle touch, returning again and again to the stories of the Bible, which confirm or dispute his vision of real life. ‘Every last word is contagious,’ he writes, awake to all the implications of that phrase. There is plenty of guilt—survivor’s guilt, sinner’s guilt—and ever-present death, but also the joy of survival and sin. And not everyone has the chutzpah to rewrite The Good Book.”—NPR.org
Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez
“In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in. Olivarez has a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch.”
Indecency by Justin Phillip Reed
“ Indecency is boldly and carefully executed and perfectly ragged. In these poems, Justin Phillip Reed experiments with language to explore inequity and injustice and to critique and lament the culture of white supremacy and the dominant social order. Political and personal, tender, daring, and insightful―the author unpacks his intimacies, weaponizing poetry to take on masculinity, sexuality, exploitation, and the prison industrial complex and unmask all the failures of the structures into which society sorts us.”
Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
“This highly-anticipated debut boldly confronts addiction and courses the strenuous path of recovery, beginning in the wilds of the mind. Poems confront craving, control, the constant battle of alcoholism and sobriety, and the questioning of the self and its instincts within the context of this never-ending fight.”
WHEREAS by Layli Long Soldier
“ WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation―and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.”
The Undressing by Li-Young Lee
“ The Undressing is a tonic for spiritual anemia; it attempts to uncover things hidden since the dawn of the world. Short of achieving that end, these mysterious, unassuming poems investigate the human violence and dispossession increasingly prevalent around the world, as well as the horrors the poet grew up with as a child of refugees. Lee draws from disparate sources, including the Old Testament, the Dao De Jing, and the music of the Wu Tang Clan. While the ostensive subjects of these layered, impassioned poems are wide-ranging, their driving engine is a burning need to understand our collective human mission.”
Cenzontle by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
“In this highly lyrical, imagistic debut, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo creates a nuanced narrative of life before, during, and after crossing the US/Mexico border. These poems explore the emotional fallout of immigration, the illusion of the American dream via the fallacy of the nuclear family, the latent anxieties of living in a queer brown undocumented body within a heteronormative marriage, and the ongoing search for belonging. Finding solace in the resignation to sheer possibility, these poems challenge us to question the potential ways in which two people can interact, love, give birth, and mourn―sometimes all at once.”
Devotions: Collected Poems by Mary Oliver
“Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as ‘far and away, this country’s best selling poet’ by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years. Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver’s work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems , published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity , published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.”
Blackacre by Monica Youn
“‘Blackacre’ is a centuries-old legal fiction―a placeholder name for a hypothetical estate. Treacherously lush or alluringly bleak, these poems reframe their subjects as landscape, as legacy―a bereavement, an intimacy, a racial identity, a pubescence, a culpability, a diagnosis. With a surveyor’s keenest tools, Youn marks the boundaries of the given, what we have been allotted: acreage that has been ruthlessly fenced, previously tenanted, ploughed and harvested, enriched and depleted. In the title sequence, the poet gleans a second crop from the field of Milton’s great sonnet on his blindness: a lyric meditation on her barrenness, on her own desire―her own struggle―to conceive a child. What happens when the transformative imagination comes up against the limits of unalterable fact?”
There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
“The only thing more beautiful than Beyoncé is God, and God is a black woman sipping rosé and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly-laughing in the therapist’s office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive. Morgan Parker stands at the intersections of vulnerability and performance, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence. Unrelentingly feminist, tender, ruthless, and sequined, these poems are an altar to the complexities of black American womanhood in an age of non-indictments and deja vu, and a time of wars over bodies and power. These poems celebrate and mourn. They are a chorus chanting: You’re gonna give us the love we need.”
When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz
“‘I write hungry sentences,’ Natalie Diaz once explained in an interview, ‘because they want more and more lyricism and imagery to satisfy them.’ This debut collection is a fast-paced tour of Mojave life and family narrative: A sister fights for or against a brother on meth, and everyone from Antigone, Houdini, Huitzilopochtli, and Jesus is invoked and invited to hash it out. These darkly humorous poems illuminate far corners of the heart, revealing teeth, tails, and more than a few dreams.”
Ordinary Beast by Nicole Sealey
“The existential magnitude, deep intellect, and playful subversion of St. Thomas-born, Florida-raised poet Nicole Sealey’s work is restless in its empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human. The ranging scope of inquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast —at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential—is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey’s voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history, and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey’s is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge.”
Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
“In his haunting and fearless debut, Ocean Vuong walks a tightrope of historic and personal violences, creating an interrogation of the American body as a borderless space of both failure and triumph. At once vulnerable and redemptive, dreamlike and visceral, compassionate and unforgiving, these poems seek a myriad existence without forgetting the prerequisite of self-preservation in a world bent on extinguishing its othered voices. Vuong’s poems show, through breath, cadence, and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the most necessary of hungers.”
blud by Rachel McKibbins
“McKibbens’s blud is a collection of dark, rhythmic poems interested in the ways in which inherited things―bloodlines, mental illnesses, trauma―affect their inheritors. Reveling in form and sound, McKibbens’s writing takes back control, undaunted by the idea of sinking its teeth into the ugliest moments of life, while still believing―and looking for―the good underneath all the bruising.”
Lo terciario / The Tertiary by Raquel Salas Rivera
“Poetry. Written in response to the PROMESA bill (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act) bill, LO TERCIARIO/THE TERCIARY offers a decolonial queer critique and reconsideration of Marx. The book’s titles come from Pedro Scaron’s El Capital , the 1976 translation of Karl Marx’s classic. Published by Siglo Veintiuno Editores, this translation was commonly used by the Puerto Rican left as part of political formation programs. LO TERCIARIO/THE TERCIARY places this text in relation to the Puerto Rican debt crisis, forcing readers to reconsider old questions when facing colonialism’s newest horrors.”
Crush by Richard Siken
“Richard Siken’s Crush , selected as the 2004 winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, is a powerful collection of poems driven by obsession and love. Siken writes with ferocity, and his reader hurtles unstoppably with him. His poetry is confessional, gay, savage, and charged with violent eroticism. In the world of American poetry, Siken’s voice is striking. In her introduction to the book, competition judge Louise Glück hails the “cumulative, driving, apocalyptic power, [and] purgatorial recklessness” of Siken’s poems. She notes, ‘Books of this kind dream big. . . . They restore to poetry that sense of crucial moment and crucial utterance which may indeed be the great genius of the form.'”
Rock|Salt|Stone by Rosamond S. King
“Rock|Salt|Stone sprays life-preserving salt through the hard realities of rocks, stones, and rockstones used as anchors, game pieces, or weapons. The manuscript travels through Africa, the Caribbean, and the USA, including cultures and varieties of English from all of those places. The poems center the experience of the outsider, whether she is an immigrant, a woman, or queer. Sometimes direct, sometimes abstract, these poems engage different structures, forms, and experiences while addressing the sharp realities of family, sexuality, and immigration.”
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
“ Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes away—loved ones, the seasons, the earth as we know it—that tries to find solace in the processes of the garden and the orchard. That is, this is a book that studies the wisdom of the garden and orchard, those places where all—death, sorrow, loss—is converted into what might, with patience, nourish us.”
The January Children by Safia Elhillo
“ The January Children depicts displacement and longing while also questioning accepted truths about geography, history, nationhood, and home. The poems mythologize family histories until they break open, using them to explore aspects of Sudan’s history of colonial occupation, dictatorship, and diaspora. Several of the poems speak to the late Egyptian singer Abdelhalim Hafez, who addressed many of his songs to the asmarani —an Arabic term of endearment for a brown-skinned or dark-skinned person. Elhillo explores Arabness and Africanness and the tensions generated by a hyphenated identity in those two worlds. No longer content to accept manmade borders, Elhillo navigates a new and reimagined world. Maintaining a sense of wonder in multiple landscapes and mindscapes of perpetually shifting values, she leads the reader through a postcolonial narrative that is equally terrifying and tender, melancholy and defiant.”
Oculus by Sally Wen Mao
“In Oculus , Sally Wen Mao explores exile not just as a matter of distance and displacement but as a migration through time and a reckoning with technology. The title poem follows a nineteen-year-old girl in Shanghai who uploaded her suicide onto Instagram. Other poems cross into animated worlds, examine robot culture, and haunt a necropolis for electronic waste. A fascinating sequence spanning the collection speaks in the voice of the international icon and first Chinese American movie star Anna May Wong, who travels through the history of cinema with a time machine, even past her death and into the future of film, where she finds she has no progeny. With a speculative imagination and a sharpened wit, Mao powerfully confronts the paradoxes of seeing and being seen, the intimacies made possible and ruined by the screen, and the many roles and representations that women of color are made to endure in order to survive a culture that seeks to consume them.”
bury it by sam sax
“sam sax’s bury it, winner of the 2017 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, begins with poems written in response to the spate of highly publicized young gay suicides in the summer of 2010. What follows are raw and expertly crafted meditations on death, rituals of passage, translation, desire, diaspora, and personhood. What’s at stake is survival itself and the archiving of a lived and lyric history. Laughlin Award judge Tyehimba Jess says “bury it is lit with imagery and purpose that surprises and jolts at every turn. Exuberant, wild, tightly knotted mesmerisms of discovery inhabit each poem in this seethe of hunger and sacred toll of toil. A vitalizing and necessary book of poems that dig hard and lift luminously.” In this phenomenal second collection of poems, Sam Sax invites the reader to join him in his interrogation of the bridges we cross, the bridges we burn, and bridges we must leap from.”
Rapture by Sjohnna McCray
“In this award-winning debut, Sjohnna McCray movingly recounts a life born out of wartime to a Korean mother and an American father serving during the Vietnam War. Their troubled histories, and McCray’s own, are told with lyric passion and the mythic undercurrents of discovering one’s own identity, one’s own desires. What emerges is a self- and family portrait of grief and celebration, one that insists on our lives as anything, please, but singular. Rapture is an extraordinary first collection, with poems of rare grace and feeling.”
Registers of Illuminated Villages by Tarfia Faizullah
“ Registers of Illuminated Villages is Tarfia Faizullah’s highly anticipated second collection, following her award-winning debut, Seam . Faizullah’s new work extends and transforms her powerful accounts of violence, war, and loss into poems of many forms and voices―elegies, outcries, self-portraits, and larger-scale confrontations with discrimination, family, and memory. One poem steps down the page like a Slinky; another poem responds to makeup homework completed in the summer of a childhood accident; other poems punctuate the collection with dark meditations on dissociation, discipline, defiance, and destiny; and the near-title poem, ‘Register of Eliminated Villages,’ suggests illuminated texts, one a Qur’an in which the speaker’s name might be found, and the other a register of 397 villages destroyed in northern Iraq. Faizullah is an essential new poet whose work only grows more urgent, beautiful, and―even in its unsparing brutality―full of love.”
Junk by Tommy Pico
“The third book in Tommy Pico’s Teebs trilogy, Junk is a breakup poem in couplets: ice floe and hot lava, a tribute to Janet Jackson and nacho cheese. In the static that follows the loss of a job or an apartment or a boyfriend, what can you grab onto for orientation? The narrator wonders what happens to the sense of self when the illusion of security has been stripped away. And for an indigenous person, how do these lost markers of identity echo larger cultural losses and erasures in a changing political landscape? In part taking its cue from A.R. Ammons’s Garbage, Teebs names this liminal space “Junk,” in the sense that a junk shop is full of old things waiting for their next use; different items that collectively become indistinct. But can there be a comfort outside the anxiety of utility? An appreciation of “being” for the sake of being? And will there be Chili Cheese Fritos?”
Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith
“In Wade in the Water , Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America’s contemporary moment both to our nation’s fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith’s signature voice―inquisitive, lyrical, and wry―turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence. Here, private utterance becomes part of a larger choral arrangement as the collection widens to include erasures of The Declaration of Independence and the correspondence between slave owners, a found poem comprised of evidence of corporate pollution and accounts of near-death experiences, a sequence of letters written by African Americans enlisted in the Civil War, and the survivors’ reports of recent immigrants and refugees. Wade in the Water is a potent and luminous book by one of America’s essential poets.”
So Far So Good by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin was lauded by millions for her ground-breaking science fiction novels, but she began as a poet, and wrote across genres for her entire career. In this clarifying and sublime collection―completed shortly before her death in 2018―Le Guin is unflinching in the face of mor- tality, and full of wonder for the mysteries beyond. Redolent of the lush natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, with rich sounds playfully echoing myth and nursery rhyme, Le Guin bookends a long, daring, and prolific career.”
Barbie Chang by Victoria Chang
“In Barbie Chang , Victoria Chang explores racial prejudice, sexual privilege, and the disillusionment of love through a reimagining of Barbie―perfect in the cultural imagination yet repeatedly falling short as she pursues the American dream. This energetic string of linked poems is full of wordplay, humor, and biting social commentary involving the quote-unquote speaker, Barbie Chang, a disillusioned Asian-American suburbanite. By turns woeful and passionate, playful and incisive, these poems reveal a voice insisting that “even silence is not silent.”
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire
“What elevates ‘teaching my mother how to give birth’, what gives the poems their disturbing brilliance, is Warsan Shire’s ability to give simple, beautiful eloquence to the veiled world where sensuality lives in the dominant narrative of Islam; reclaiming the more nuanced truths of earlier times—as in Tayeb Salih’s work—and translating to the realm of lyric the work of the likes of Nawal El Saadawi. As Rumi said, “Love will find its way through all languages on its own”; in ‘teaching my mother how to give birth’, Warsan’s début pamphlet, we witness the unearthing of a poet who finds her way through all preconceptions to strike the heart directly.”
The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic edited by Jamila Woods, Mahogany L. Browne, and Idrissa Simmonds
“ Black Girl Magic continues and deepens the work of the first BreakBeat Poets anthology by focusing on some of the most exciting Black women writing today. This anthology breaks up the myth of hip-hop as a boys’ club, and asserts the truth that the cypher is a feminine form.” featuring poems by Elizabeth Acevedo, Ariana Brown, Safia Elhillo, Eve L. Ewing, Camonghne Felix, Marwa Helal, Nabia Lovelace, Aja Monet, Ysenia Montilla, Angel Nafis, Noname, Morgan Parker, and more.
New Poets of Native Nations edited by Heid E. Erdrich
“ New Poets of Native Nations gathers poets of diverse ages, styles, languages, and tribal affiliations to present the extraordinary range and power of new Native poetry. Heid E. Erdrich has selected twenty-one poets whose first books were published after the year 2000 to highlight the exciting works coming up after Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie. Collected here are poems of great breadth―long narratives, political outcries, experimental works, and traditional lyrics―and the result is an essential anthology of some of the best poets writing now. Poets included are Tacey M. Atsitty, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Laura Da’, Natalie Diaz, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Eric Gansworth, Gordon Henry, Jr., Sy Hoahwah, LeAnne Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Margaret Noodin, dg okpik, Craig Santos Perez, Tommy Pico, Cedar Sigo, M. L. Smoker, Gwen Westerman, and Karenne Wood.”
Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color edited by Christopher Soto
“In 2014, Christopher Soto and Lambda Literary Foundation founded the online journal Nepantla, with the mission to nurture, celebrate, and preserve diversity within the queer poetry community, including contributions as diverse in style and form, as the experiences of QPOC in the United States. Now, Nepantla will appear for the first time in print as a survey of poetry by queer poets of color throughout U.S. history, including literary legends such as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Ai, and Pat Parker alongside contemporaries such as Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Robin Coste Lewis, Joy Harjo, Richard Blanco, Erika L. Sánchez, Jericho Brown, Carl Phillips, Tommy Pico, Eduardo C. Corral, Chen Chen, and more.”
For more of the best poetry books, check out 50 Must Read Poetry Collections of 2019 and 15 WoC Poets to Read During National Poetry Month.
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Sep 8, 2016
How To Come Up With A Great Title For Your Book, Story, Or Poem
Coming up with a killer book title is hard. There’s a lot at stake in a title: It’s your readers’ first impression of your work, and it’s got to be evocative, unique, and precise. The pressure can be overwhelming! Fortunately, we’ve got some great tips to help you come up with the perfect title for your book, short story, or poem.
Elements Of Great Book Titles
Poetic language. Some of the best titles — the ones we can’t forget — use evocative language to make a statement. Sometimes, the language verges on poetic. Consider elusive and somewhat vague titles like: Gone with the Wind; Of Mice and Men; Grapes of Wrath; Snow Falling On Cedars; The Fault in Our Stars.
Action words. Titles that showcase strong verbs leap off the shelves. Things Fall Apart is clear and haunting. Gone Girl is energetic and in-your-face. A Game Of Thrones sets a precedent for tension.
Inherent mystery/conflict. Great titles hint at the story to come. They point to the main conflict: What’s at stake? When a title can concisely encapsulate action, you’ve got a great shot at getting a reader’s attention in just a few words. Consider Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: It’s a long title, but it’s so good. It suggests an epic battle between powerful archetypes, but it also offers the quiet, quaintly creepy image of a garden at night. The Light in Ruins does something similar.
Character’s names. Often (but not always) titles that make use of character names have an element of mystery attached to them as well. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Harry Potter And The [Fill In The Blank Here]. Books with character names can also be whimsical, such as: Where’d You Go, Bernadette?; Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day; Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret .
Place names. If your book has a great setting (a setting that has strong branding), you might want to use that to your advantage. The Last Time I Saw Paris showcases the City of Lights with a touch of nostalgia (it also hints at conflict, at something lost and longed-for). Death Comes To Pemberley makes great use of the estate that’s familiar to all readers of Pride and Prejudice , but adds a modern layer of mystery and drama.
Quirky titles. Some titles embody contrasts that make readers say, huh? And, of course, that leads them to read the back cover to find out what’s going on: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; One of our Thursdays is Missing; Pineapple Grenade; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The one-word title. These titles tend to work best with really strong cover art. Here are a few one-word titles: Slammed; Affliction; Stranded, etc.
Titles And Book Genre
If you’re writing in a commercial book genre , be sure you have a good understanding of how titles within that particular genre work. And we wouldn’t recommend straying too far away from the conventions of genre book titles; fans of specific genres use titles as a kind of shorthand when they’re deciding what to buy and whether a book will live up to their expectations. For example: Your thriller might be called Death At First Light . Your romance might be To Kiss A Lady . But you wouldn’t want to switch those titles around.
Title And Copyright Law
As of this writing, authors can’t copyright their titles in America (which is why if you plug certain titles into Amazon, you’ll come up not only with multiple movies but also multiple books of the same title).
That said, we don’t recommend using the same title that someone else has previously used. It makes it more difficult for your book to stand out.
For more writing tips and advice visit WritersRelief.com
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How To Come Up With A Great Title For Your Book (Or Story Or Poem) | Writer’s Relief
by Writer's Relief Staff | Aug 1, 2013 | Book Publishing , Other Helpful Information , Poems , Publish A Nonfiction Book , Publish A Novel , Publish Creative Nonfiction , Publish Poetry , Publish Short Stories , Short Stories | 186 comments
Review Board Is Now Open! Submit Your Poetry and Short Prose Today!
Deadline: monday, march 13th.
Updated 5/22/19
Coming up with a killer title is hard. There’s a lot at stake in a title: It’s your readers’ first impression of your work, and it’s got to be evocative, unique, and precise. The pressure can be overwhelming!
Poetic language. Some of the best titles—the ones we remember—use evocative language to make a statement. Sometimes, the language verges on poetic. Consider elusive and somewhat vague titles like: Gone with the Wind; Of Mice and Men; Grapes of Wrath; Snow Falling On Cedars; The Fault in Our Stars.
Action words. Titles that showcase strong verbs leap off the shelves. Things Fall Apart is clear and haunting. Gone Girl is energetic and in-your-face. A Game Of Thrones sets a precedent for tension.
Inherent mystery/conflict. Great titles hint at the story to come. They point to the main conflict: What’s at stake? When a title can concisely encapsulate action, you’ve got a great shot at getting a reader’s attention in just a few words.
Consider Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: It’s a long title, but it’s so good. It suggests an epic battle between powerful archetypes, but it also offers the quiet, quaintly creepy image of a garden at night. The Light in Ruins does something similar.
Character’s names. Often (but not always) titles that make use of character names have an element of mystery attached to them as well. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Harry Potter And The [Fill In The Blank Here]. Books with character names can also be whimsical, such as: Where’d You Go, Bernadette?; Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day; Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret .
Place names. If your work has a great setting (a setting that has strong branding), you might want to use that to your advantage. The Last Time I Saw Paris showcases the City of Lights with a touch of nostalgia (it also hints at conflict, at something lost and longed-for). Death Comes To Pemberley makes great use of the estate that’s familiar to all readers of Pride and Prejudice , but adds a modern layer of mystery and drama.
Quirky titles. Some titles embody contrasts that make readers say, huh? And, of course, that leads them to read more to find out what’s going on: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; One of our Thursdays is Missing; Pineapple Grenade; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
If you’re writing in a commercial book genre , be sure you have a good understanding of how titles within that particular genre work. And we wouldn’t recommend straying too far away from the conventions of genre book titles; fans of specific genres use titles as a kind of shorthand when they’re deciding what to buy and whether a book will live up to their expectations.
For example: Your thriller might be called Death At First Light . Your romance might be To Kiss A Lady . But you wouldn’t want to switch those titles around.
Here are Goodreads users’ favorite book titles.
Title And Copyright Law
As of this writing, authors can’t copyright their titles in America (which is why if you plug certain titles into Amazon, you’ll come up not only with multiple movies but also multiple books of the same title).
That said, we don’t recommend using the same title that someone else has previously used. It makes it more difficult for your book to stand out.
When In Doubt, Get Help
If you’re coming up with a title, ask friends and family for help. Host a brainstorming session. Sometimes, a new perspective is the best way to hit on just the right title for your book.
But remember: If you’re hoping to publish a book with a traditional publisher, there’s some possibility that you might not be able to keep your title anyway. Publishers tend to change them (and, don’t worry, your publisher will fret about the perfect title right along with you).
QUESTION: What’s one of your favorite titles?
186 Comments
When I was little, I used to read the titles of my older brothers’ and sisters’ books in the basement. One that always struck me was The Stars Tonight. It was a book on astronomy, but the title felt almost magical, hinting at dreams and longings and possibilities.
The Life and Love of Canadian Poetry: An Interpretative View
Some titles compels us to buy: 1. I beat cancer 2. Mind Fantasy and Healing 3. Drunkard’s Walk. 4. Moon walking with Einstein. Then ofcourse: 5. Art of War/LIving/Learning 6. Psychology of Thinking/Computer programming 7. Strategic Marketing
I titled my debut novel The Sheep Walker. When it came time for the publisher to design the book cover, that gave her problems. The title is both a metaphor and a reference to a character who plays a major role in my MC’s life, but a minor role in the book. They changed the title to The Sheep Walker’s Daughter and then it was easier to come up with a cover that that didn’t didn’t mislead readers.
Excellent prompts here. I will keep these in mind for my sequel.
I think I nailed it with my book, “The Unraveling of Reverend G.”
Try saying your title out loud. Some of the most memorable titles are these which sound great when spoken.
In all humility, my book’s title fulfills all the criteria, motivating people to read it:
Praying When Prayer Doesn’t Work.
I believe my book matched the criteria rather well, it’s called “The Lumberjack’s Girl” while it is a YA, and the main characters are Actors, The main male played a Lumberjack when they first bonded…
Mine is Flight Less Than Seven. What do you think? 😀
Jojo that is an awesome title!v
My book title is the “tiny surprise, that change my life!”
Is this a good title; Stable and Unpredictable ?
I need help! My book is about a superhero girl trying to be a normal teenager. It’s a comedy. The main character Toronto Springs can shoot tornadoes out of the palms of her hands. I am stumped! Any help whatsoever would be awesome. I was thinking “The life of a teenage ______” Thanx! <3
Unfortunately, we can’t really help you come up with a title. But best of luck!
An idea is “My secret life as a superhero” or put her hero name instead of superhero.
Rosie that sounds mysterious. It almost contradicts itself and draws readers in. It’s great!
Piper, What about: The Secret Life Of A Teenage Superhero How To Be Normal By Tornado Springs ??? Good luck PS You’re better than me – I’m not even close to publishing my book. (How do you make a poetry book sound exciting?!)
I am working on a book and am stuck for a title, I thought about “The Best Worst thing” But found another book of the same name and would like something more unique. Any ideas?
How is this: The Golden End/ing
Zayaan, that’s pretty cool. How about this: Alone Together in Paper Cups
Mint: I would be reading the back of that book in a flash. How about “Clara Can’t Wear Black Slippers”? It has to do with ballet :3
“Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. I’m a painter so I like unusual visual images.
I habe this amazing idea for a fiction book, I haven’t started yet but it is all in my head. It takes place in medieval times. There’s this girl who’s pack (yes she’s a wolf) has been brutally slaughter by …. She is the only one who survived, not that it matters because she is held captive. But the books begins with this girl in wolf form in the woods where she was hunting with her pack 2 years earlier. Then there is this other girl who got lost in the woods, she is of royal blood. She got badly injured and this wolf girl sees her laying against a tree, dyng of her injury. The wolf girl heals her and the other girl wakes up, scared of course. But there is this brief moment where she stared into the wolfs eyes, and she was no longer scared. She reached out to the wolfgirl but she ran away. Then 2 years later when the wolf girl gets captured, she finds out that it was this girls father, the king of a mighty kingdom called …., is the one who slaughter her entire pack. There are many more advemtures to come but I cant describe them all of course. Does any one have any idea for a title?
See if you can guess what my book is about by the title!
‘The Last Choice’
Its a bit lame, it’s just a temporary title until I come up with a really good name for it 🙂
I’m trying to come up with a title for my book. I would like some help. the book is about two transgender teens finding love in a judgemental high school
I’m thinking you should do something short and simple, like maybe “Star Crossed” or “Transformed” idk maybe those suck but I think you could come up with a really good one that relates to a strong line in the book!! Best of luck 🙂
Krista, something simple like just the word ‘Different’ would sound nice :3
But that’s just my opinion.
I wrote a short story for my English Folio about a boy and his mother who decide to go to his office building and stand up to him. I called it ‘Don’t Hurt Mummy.’ I don’t know if this is a good enough title, I was just going to call it ‘James’ As that is the boy’s name, but yeah, I don’t really know c’:
I’m writing a teen romance. The book is about a boy and a girl, music, finding yourself and betrayal. I really need help to pick the title. This is the options: 1.) Love at first sight? 2.) Be yourself. Find yourself 3.) When you least expect it 4.) The dust of the starlight 5.) Bitter sweet symphony Which one do you think would be the best? 🙂
I’m writing a story about a a 17 year old girl who runs away and joins a motorcycle gang, it’s a comedy/romance story but I’m completely stuck for a name idea? Any suggestions? Thanks!
I’m writing a book about a girl who has troubled life and wants to run away,her step-dad abuses her and her mum wont leave him but i cant figure out a good name for the book the girl is called Elizabeth so i thought of calling it by her name but I’ve heard of a couple of books with that title could anyone help me please.
The life of Madeleine
“Cosette” means little thing in French. The name given to the girl by Victor Hugo in “Les Miserables.”
So obviously The life of a Teenage Tornado fits with what you want but how about Don’t Be Such a Dust Devil I’m a Natural at Disasters Multiple Vortex
For puzzled They’re Just Bruises Lets Just Leave I Can’t Cry
For Ava Marshall Leather Jackets/ Leather Jackets and Lipstick Crashing Bad/ Crashing into cars/ Crashing isn’t funny Jackson! (or main characters love interest) This is a Helmet
For Helena Between Hard Rock and Love Harmony to Solo Solo Acapella other wise, the dust of the starlight sounds cool
Krista Bailey- Judgment Day She and She (Or He and He) It’s not my Fault A Dick on a Jane She’s a boy
Wolfgirl: Slave to a Pack of Wolves
Hi, I’m looking for help with a couple of books I’m working on. The first is a sports novel, which I have already titled, “Our Pitcher Has a Ponytail,” but I think it’s tacky. This site has already been a huge help to me in understanding what makes a good title, however! The book is about a girl who joins a boys baseball team, and even though she’s amazing, is hated by all of the team. It’s kind of a weird story, but it’s my first. The second is a fast paced adventure, set in many different times and places. The story begins in 1960’s Saskatchewan, and five close knit friends take an unbelievable adventure through the backyard. Yes, the backyard. It sounds funny, but I’m hoping it will be as good as I can imagine it. Sorry if I rambled. Thank you in advance to anyone who is willing to give me title tips 🙂 Hannah
Hey, entering this competition with a story I wrote. It’s about gender segregation and how girls are first class and boys second class. This girl (ebony) runs away, after her mother (the president) evicts all males including her brother from the city. I’m 13 and am stuck for title ideas. Any help?! Any would be appreciated! x
I’m in the process of scripting my debut graphic novel. the novel is a dystopian taking place in a steampunk setting with elements of cyberpunk mashed together. The novel also has elements of fantasy, scifi, romance, horror, thriller, comedy and western. I have a title for it but it’s yet to be confirmed, so I’m using it as a place-holder in case if it doesn’t sound engaging to audiences. It’s called Elfico Rosa but formally, I call it Project: Elfico Rosa.
What does anyone think?
should i name my book about young spys insane world
I wrote a short story about a teenager volunteering afterschool to help some of the senior citizens in her community. I’m stuck with the title. I had two in mind: Nandee and the Senior Citizens of the Timbu Community or Nandee volunteers afterschool
What do you think of “Death claims his precious victim” It’s all about this girl who escapes death many times. It’s from the point of view of death. Its just a short story that I’m doing it for my national5 English port folio. What do you think.
my story’s title is ‘Waiting on a Miracle’
All very interesting titles, they all inpired me too use a quote within a title. My title is: Practice makes Perfect, which is about this guy practicing to kill his friend before he actually does. I hope this helped 🙂
Hey so I wrote a poem about a girl who got locked in her room every night by this person and it’s really cool and I may make it into a story but I need help on a title normaly I’m really good at titles but I was thinking maybe “The Love, The Life, and The Death” What do you think and If you have any other ideas I’m open to seggestions.
Im really struggling coming up with a name for my book, I’ve tried to get some of my friends to help but they don’t have any good ideas either. It’s about a 14 year old girl who lives in London and she leaves home seeking for adventure and leads the life of crime when she struggles living on her own. She refuses to go back to her abusive family and rather live on the streets. Anyone have any ideas?
This is a poem I wrote about a fellow writer and i(she is female I am a male) we aren’t dating but interest is there help me title it please “untitled” Your touch was like nothing I had ever felt before. So unique and indescribable, like getting your first tattoo you don’t really know how to explain it, a painful pleasuring electrifying spectrum of sensation. Much like the feeling all I knew is I wanted more.
your words followed as you echoed
Christian Christian Please
Our kiss was beautiful, much like the touch of the sunset on the horizon Your lips tasted like the rain and I was patiently waiting for the storm. All elements hit me at once.
I felt the lightening coursing through your veins A tsunami crashing against your chest The hurricane in your mind But What I felt the most Was the hope in your heart The love within you, you fragile human. Oh what a shame no one has loved you like you deserve.
I saw the stars in your eyes they whisper
Take my hand. Secure, the feeling. Relaxing, the reassurance I’ve calmed your storm. And as you lay upon my chest know that each time you do the disease within me dies.
As my mind echoes your voice
I don’t want to open up too much. I would not want you to fall in, and hurt yourself. And as you lay your head on my chest ignore the shouts from that locked up thing in the cage it could utter something entirely too irrational. But I’m afraid that if you ever found the key that your ears would not be big enough for your heart to understand the words inside mine. I may start a whole new natural disaster. Grab on. Hold tight. Enjoy the ride.
Christian Christian Please.
Is A People of Blood an interesting Title? I have so much trouble with titles.
Unknown what about “Me and My Shadow” I think it represents the girl well Just an idea hope it helps 🙂
Haha I just got another idea figures I send then come up with something anyway what about “Injustice and Isolation” Again just an idea hope it helps 🙂
I’m writing a story about a boy who stalks a girl and they end up meeting. It’s about the lead up to them meeting and what happens after. But i can’t think of a title, I was thinking of ‘The Unheralded’ but I’m not sure. Any other ideas?
Hello, I have two in progress…
How are these titles?
-Through Different Eyes -I Watch the Stars Tonight
Hey everybody 🙂 Im writing a book about a bad man. But I would not want the title be like “gangster man” or anything like that..But its too simple, I was thinking about something more unique. Anyone has any ideas pleease?
My friend and I wrote a book about people who have elemental powers. They are fire, wind, earth, and water. And there are people who don’t have powers the unelementals. When thee are four cities one for each element. Each element is ruled by a king or a queen. When all the Kings and queens die teens from be ages of 13 to 18 go through different trials and 11 of each element makes it to camp. They compete in games and get eliminated as they go. Each eliminated person gets a position in the palace somewhere. The winners of the last game become either king or queen but in the last game something happens and the non-elementals start a war against the elementals by taking their powers. The elemental a win in the end but now they have to rebuild the destroyed cities. Got any tiitle ideas because we’ve got none
The title of a book I’ve recently started is called “Project Nursery Rhyme.” It’s about eight teenagers who come across a large, empty, dusty book. They discard it, to later find it again only this time, it isn’t empty- some of the pages are filled with pencil drawings of shadow people, and the dark sides of nursery rhymes. This continues to happen, and as it does, the teenagers find out that the evil nursery rhymes themselves are after them. What do you guys think?
I am writing a book on how to get ready ready for divine manifestations. But I am struggling with the title between ‘get ready for divine destiny’ or ‘getting ready for divine destiny’ Any help plz
So I’m halfway through writing the second book in my trilogy. The first book has been named ‘Violet Skies’, a twist on the main character’s name which is Violet Skye. The first book is about training for a war, and a teacher/student romance. During the first chapter of Violet Skies, I mentioned a ‘crimson river’ through one of the characters who has already been to war and has saw a river of blood, as it were. Wanting to stick with the theme of colours, I have named the second book ‘Crimson River’. Crimson River is the time during the war and everything that happens in it. For the last book, I will be writing about the after effects of war on Violet etc and how she recovers. It will only be a short book and I already have most of it plotted out. I have named it ‘Silver Lining’ – a twist when you find out the ending 😉 I think that picking quotes from your books is really good when deciding names. For instance, as soon as I wrote the words ‘crimson river’ in the first book, I knew it was a perfect title for the sequel, which then promptly led on to the founding of the name ‘Silver Lining’. Yes, they’re all simple names and many books have been called the same names, especially Violet Skies and Silver Lining. However, I think that sticking to a certain theme as well when deciding the names is key. It certainly did me good 😀 My books are on http://www.wattpad.com and I still need to edit them, but I’m getting there. Slowly but surely.
I’m writing an erotic science fiction novel about a Japanese girl who is abducted by aliens during a war (where Earth is caught in the crossfire) and is taken aboard their ship to have sex and make babies to replenish the alien race.
The title is “Tokyo in Captivity”, this title refers to the girl’s name rather than the city. What do you think? Or should I think of something different.
What kind of title would you give a story that revolves a lot around fantasy (Swords and powers and stuff), the future (advanced tech), demons and history? Kind of convoluted but yeah that’s basically what my story revolves around
My book is about this group of misfits that always lose stuff, and the main character puts a tracking device on her glasses, so when they get lost, they go on a quest for them and it turns out there’s a villain who’s stealing their stuff to make an evil machine that will give him power over, like, TH ENTIRE WORLD!!! I was thinking “The Quest for the Missing Glasses That Saved the World”. I know it’s long, but there’s a book called “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making” and that’s long but it’s still good! So what do you think. And @Bradley maybe you could do like, “Times and Travel” because there’s like different places (fantasy) and different times (future and history)
I need some help guys… My book is about my life and how all the messed up stuff my parents have done to me and how i still managed to stay strong and turn out alright. It pretty much talks about family politics, lying, cheating, drinking and gambling and how it messes with a person while growing up. Please help me find the perfect name for my book.
I wrote a story about a girl whose husband had died She was alone and wanted to commit suicide but had a dream that made her stop. What is the best title for my story? Help please..
I’m changing the book name to SMAKK because that’s the name the group designs for themselves or maybe Losers Keepers Finders Weepers (My friend came up with that). For T you can call your book “Parents That Gambled My Childhood” or instead of “gambled” “cheated”, maybe? I would help you, the second “anonymous”, but I need to know more about the dream. So yeah
Wow, all of you have great titles! Well, I’m writing a book set in a different world to ours but it’s got everything like England, Russia, Mexico, Berlin, Dehli etc. It’s set in a Tudor/Elizabethan type era as well. It’s a series by the way. The first book is about two sisters, one who has been forced to marry a horrid king (they’re Russian btw) (the king is english) and dies in childbirth, and the other who has to flee from the king, when he tries to force HER into marrying him (he wants an heir). She escapes while going on adventures to flee from him. It’s basically about making descisions, not letting people controll you and finding the power to say no (does that make sense?). Any title ideas anyone? Much appreaciated (sorry for spelling btw). Thanks!
I wrote a book about a girl who is a child genius at age 18 and has been offered a job as a marine behaviorist at a facility that specializes in unusual creatures. The creatures she works with are the mythological creature Selkie and everyone tells me I should name the book Selkie but that seems like it gives away the first few chapters of building up to what the creature actually is. Help!
Dear Naomi, I don’t have any ideas about what to call your book, I’m sorry! But i would not name it Selkie, because, yes, it would give it away and it’s not a very memorable title either. I hope you find a good title and I’m sorry that my mind is still blank. Grace Klara
Don’t worry everyone, I’ve thought of a name!
So I’m writing a book set in London during the 1800s. It’s about a girl who finds a mysterious locket, then she and her friend (who is not who he says he is) have to stop a crazy duke from poisoning the city. The only title I’ve come up with is “Locked”. Any thoughts
I’ve almost finished this book about a girl who comes from an overly conservative family and how she fights all she can to get what she wants in life. Well, its like a love story whose plot is actually based on this. The main characters are mostly based in London, and that’s where my female protagonist meets her Prince Charming. So can anyone help with a killer title?? Would be great help. Thanks.:)
OK so my book is about 16 10-19 year olds fighting each other. They each have powers, and some want to use them for good while others want to use them for evil. I am torn between the titles, “All of Reality at Your Fingertips” and “A Natural at Disasters.” Let me know what you think!
Hi guys! Bri, I think that locked would be a great name for a book, but its overly used. How about “Locked In Mysteries” since you said the locket is mysterious and her friend isn’t who he says he is so that sound pretty mysterious. Vidushi, “Modern Cinderella” might work? sounds like a really good book but I can’t think of anything jessi, “A Natural at Disasters” is a REALLY good name! I love it. I would totally buy that book if i saw it on amazon, or a book store, or a library, or, well, you get my point.
im writing a book, but have no idea what to call it. its about a girl (doesn’t have a name yet) which is about 16 years old and she finds herself, after a car crash, in a place where people turn into animals at night. need a title plz!!!!
NeverKnow: “Where there’s were-people, maybe? I can’t think of anything really.
I’m pretty stumped on a title for my drama novel. My story line consists of a young teenage girl who develops amnesia, waking up in an empty and abandoned town. The entire story is about her trying to pick up the pieces of her memory and find her family again. Any ideas? No idea’s a bad one! Thank you~ ^U^
Hey! I’m currently thinking of writing a novel, I have it all planned out, but, I’m not sure of a good title. Is “A Tune For The Wind-Chime Sparrow” a good one?
Basically, a teenager girl starting high-school, disappears from her normal life and leaves her boyfriend in pieces – and she wakes up with a pack of wolves around her. The pack’s Alpha had sacrificed his soul for this innocent – and confused – young girl, as she was getting attacked by a bear. After which, she is now apart of the pack – the Alpha. But she must choose – her life as a human, or her life as a part of the pack? Of course I’m quite skeptical about posting my ideas online, but it’s only a sketch. I’ve always wanted to use this title – and I do have an idea of how it might fit into this story, but if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them!
I’m stuck, I have been writing a new book for awhile now, and I can’t decide on which title I should use. I could use some ideas.
The book is about a girl who has the power to heal, and she can never die. She moves into a small town and meets some new people, including a boy who is a bit too curious about her, and she is scared that she will be exposed. I think I’m going to make a kinda plot twist where she finds out she is an angel or something (still thinking about the story line)
I can’t decide if I should use one of these titles or not.
Time won’t heal me The red angel To heal the world A lost angel
Any ideas? Please do tell
Im thinking about writing a story about this girl who is a witch in highschool, and how she runs away from her overly religious parents to join a group of people who have powers. I would like the title of the book to be the name of their group. Does anyone have any ideas?
so i want to write this book about this girl who meets this guy and they start dating but before things get serious she tells him shes offered to be her sisters surgate. the girl ends up going through it and gets pregnant. but shortly there after her sister and brother die in a car crash. this leaves my main female character left to raise the child once its born and shes afraid of going at it alone. till the boyfriend steps up and offers to help her through her pregnancy and to be there for the baby when its born. and eventually he’ll end up marrying her. does anyone have any ideas for a title? im stumped.
So I’m writing a story about an immortal girl who grew up from age 13 to 18 with her best friend because her family died in a fire. She falls for him and him for her but then he dies after he finds out about her secret of being a ninja at night when he tries to follow her one night. Now in present day she is trying to rid the world of evil and Charlotte Frayer, her best friend later in life who turned evil when she thought the main character, Lauren, killed her fiancé. There is more detail but I don’t want to spoil anything. I’m thinking about calling it “Eventide” but I’m not sure. Any ideas?
I’m writing a story about a family that owns a petshop, and the main character’s crushes apply for jobs. But the only catch is that she’s severely shy unlike her sister Raven who gets all the guys. I’m completely stumped for a title. Any suggestions?
So I’m writing a story for an English project about a mystery from a toy’s perspective. Its about when toys are being “kidnapped” and the main character Teddy (bear) is trying to figure it out.
Im thinking 1.) Toy-Napped 2.) Hide-And-Try to Seek
im writing a book about what my life was like going into 12 foster homes a kids shelter and a group home. Abusive birth parents horrible foster parents and then going into adoption with my cousin. please help
I’m writing a book about a 16-year-old orphan werewolf (but she has a pack) when I first started writing it, it was just ‘werewolves’ but that was when I just had ideas for the story – not the title. Her (sort of) brother-in-law bites a human and they have to try and cover it up, but the bit human gets away and tells everyone there are dangerous wolves in the forest, they have to deal with that and one of the bitten’s mates are with him the next full moon when he turns for the first time. He and Ash meet and there’s complicating romance and blah blah blah (Im not really a romantic person if u couldnt tell…) I need some ideas for a title, if anyone can give me a heads up on an idea, please help!! xx
hey, Christian why dont you try: the disease within?
and kate, yes i think people of blood is interesting but why don’t you try a human puddle? because that suggest a pile of dead people
hey, Rydia. i love me and my shadow that will just start peoples minds
hey, chloe why dont you try: the unexpected friendship?
sam: through the stars tonight sound great
neve: how about rule breaker or down his own path?
becca:how about the elemental challenge? or the trial?
olivia: i love your title but i love your book idea even more!
wolf-gabbyy23: wy dont you try full moon , the first turning, and covered up?
teresa: if thats what the story is about maybe you could try: life as me, but if that is what really happened you should already know i mean like if its ur life
courtnie: toy napped sounds great!
ui hope everybody likes it im tryimg to help everyone lol
this si my story: whats downstairs? i like that and thats what im sticking with i hope i helped you guys thanks!!!
sorry if i couldnt do everyone thanks! see ya!
Hello Everyone,
I am writing a children’s book based on positive thinking and I am certain about the name of the title. The titles that I have in mind are; My First book of positive affirmations or My pocket book of positive affirmations. What do you think about either one? I would be grateful for your advice.
hello everyone,i’m writing a tragic love story,as an English project and I cant think of a title, any suggestions?
Zoey How about “How it Ends”?
I’m writing a story of a boy in 9th Grade having an ordinary day at his school, but when gas starts leaking through the vents he grabs the girl he loves and they make it to safety, or so they thought for when a man walks in and kicks out the girl the boy blacks out and reawakens 2 years later to find himself just off school grounds. He then makes his way to the school he finds the girl has “died” so he tries to figure out what happened that day and who took care of him for the two years.
I’ve basically finished but I have no idea what to have the title be
I’m writing a story about a “stereotypical white girl”, Brooke, moving from Nashville to the forest (she really doesn’t wanna go) and she ends up meeting a hot green witch in the forest, Adelaide. They end up becoming friends and ending the story as a couple. The magic is using the forest, gardening, and crystalline healing. Any ideas?
I’m writing a book about a group of friends that are linked to a string of capricious, very dark/macabre murders that take place in various locations throughout New York. Some of the friends are not who they say they are/put out to be. There is a very important quote about snow globes in my book and I would really like for it to relate to the title. Please help!!
im writing a story about these teenaged two ex-bestfriends who absolutely hate eachother until one of them becomes fatally ill. the one who isn’t sick, Sydney, convinces the other girl ,toni, that she has to skip graduation and see the world before she dies- although Sydney does it to impress college scouts. the book is about them becoming friends again and meeting amazing people along the way. What should I call it?
my best frenemy stuck with the dying girl Toni, the dying girl my worst enemy has (insert disease)/ my worst enemy is dying
are those good titles? any other ideas?
Hi, I’m writing a dystopian novel about a girl who lives in a society ruled by science. The only escape into freedom is the Tests. These Tests run for every 18-year-old in the world. After many physical and mental challenges, 7 are chosen to live a life a freedom, doing whatever they please but protecting the city from possible rivals or rebels. Eventually, this girl discovers that the 7 winners of the Tests are really murdered. 46 years ago, a scientist had a disagreement with the government, leading to his escape. He then created a race of warriors, 7 each year. My MC is one of these. This description sucks, but I seriously need a title!
Jaryn- how about “mysteries of the air” or something like that Antheia- how about “Green with no envy” Ashdon- how about “Never trust the snow” or something with not trusting and something inside a snow globe Izzy- “my best enemy” or “Countdown to the beginning of the end” as in countdown of her life but the new beginning to an old friendship or maybe just “the beginning of the end” Kyla- I know this sounds really cheesy but how about “The Tests” or “Warriors of Death” or “Warriors of the Dark” I hope this helps you guys! Good Luck!!!
I am really stuck on a title for my book. It is about a girl, he mother died when she was 2 and ever since it happened the father has been shutting her out and then she meets a boy and he helps bring her and her father back together.
What do I do???? I was thinking The Shadow but it sounds very creepy…..and scary What do I do? I am desperate!!!!!!!!!!!
JJ_Nicole- I like the title you came up with. It draws attention and it sounds cool. If you were looking for something a little less dark though you could do something like “Savior” or “Sounds of Sorrow” or maybe a different word besides sorrow or maybe “Saving Grace” I hope that helped
I can’t think of a good title but, the story is about a girl in school and she’s living a normal, okay, life when, a friend she knew from when she was a kid comes back to her school. She tries to be friends with him again but he’s popular now. The whole story itself is her trying to change him back to who he was before or changing herself to get him to like her again. It’s not a sad story though. I’m still making it have humor and fun things in it. Any thoughts?
Carmela how about the time before never or the night before life goes on or how to fix change or get back hope that helped!!!
My story is about a boy called Robert, who knocks out another boy called Marc and runs away. Robert beats up Marc because Marc was bullying Robert’s best friend, Warren. Robert never meant to knock Marc out. He just wanted to teach him a lesson that bullying Warren was a bad idea. It is up to the police to find Robert,bring him home to his family and then deal with his punishment.
I really cannot think of a title and need help.
Here are some ideas for you George- Renegade Life lessons from a teenage boy It only takes one hit
Dear George, what about
‘What I never meant to do’ (if its in Robert’s point of view) ‘What I did to defend Warren’ ‘How not to defend a friend’
These are just some ideas.
Dear George, having had another think, I came up with… ‘The Hopes and Dreams of a boy in his Teens’
I’m writing a book about an 18 year old singer/songwriter who’s asked to go an a tour with a band (The Red Foxes), but her sisters boyfriend (who is a criminal known for violence) attacks her and her sister. Meanwhile she develops feelings for a guy in the band (Jackson Summers).
Help, what do I call it???
I’m writing a novel about the melting icecap and polar bears, but when I tried to think of a title I came up blank. Any ideas?
I’m writing a 2 perspective, 3rd person book about a princess and a servant boy. The princess, Cami, is fifth in line to the throne and she is 15 and about to be engaged to a prince from another kingdom against her will. The night a ball is being thrown for the proposal there is an attack on the palace and the servant boy, Dmitri,has to escape the palace with Cami, who he’s never officially met, because Cami’s family tells him to take her and run. All the rest of the royal family is killed so Cami is the only living heir, and she and Dmitri are renegades out on the streets on the run. While in the streets Cami experiences a lot of stuff and she becomes more and more dark and every time Dmitri has to bring her back to the light. In the end we find out that the prince she was supposed to marry and his family are evil and Cami and Dmitri together have to overcome the darkness inside of themselves and the evil ruling the kingdoms. I’m stumped on title names. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them! Thanks and love y’all!
I need help with a title! 3: I’m absolutely rubbish at titles. Normally I do them from a passage in my book, but sometimes they’re still rubbish. This current book is nowhere close to finished, but I’d like to start thinking of titles as I continue writing. This is a brief summary: A 17 year old boy named Kynder (kin-der) in San Francisco is gay. He meets a new girl in his school named Mavis. They quickly become friends and she starts to fall for him then he tells her he’s gay. She then trusts him with the secret that she is anorexic. They help each other and grow together in their last year at school together and then in part II a boy, also gay, named Colin comes to school. He meets Mavis and Kynder and they start realizing what they want in life and slowly discovering themselves. Naturally, Kynder and Colin end up together and Mavis is left looking for a good love. They start becoming focused on their dreams as graduation approaches. Kynder wants to be a writer, Colin wants to be a famous designer and Mavis wants to act on Broadway. As these three get close they teach each other new things, keep each others minds open and discover themselves and the world beyond their San Francisco town. So far, I’ve come up with two titles: -Looking to Find (There’s a scene where they talk about what they want to find in life) -Let’s Get Outta Here (a phrase used very often in the book, but in touching moments and becomes a thing within the group) Any ideas will be greatly appreciated, Thank you!!
By the way, the book is narrated from the views of Kynder, Mavis and Colin
Is this is good name for my book? It’s about this girl who goes to this boarding school for people with special powers… (Ya I know it’s been done waaaay to many times before lol but I had great ideas for some parts of the story, plus it sounds like a lot of fun to write) so here is one of my ideas for the title… Wings, magic, and words I might change it a little later but for now it seems like a good title… Well to me it does. I know it’s totally not the best and I can totally do better than that but I am just not feeling creative right now!!! D: also does anyone else have a different title for it???
Faith- I’m not very good with coming up with book titles but maybe you could call your book “The Ice and the Bear”??? Something like that maybe???
THE ONE-WORD TITLE IN POETRY. As an editor I see it is overused, signalling the poet hasn’t thought much about the subject or the written text. In which case, why should I?
hey can you suggest a title for my book?
Actually it is a fantasy story in which Jason goes into the land of fiamasia to defeat a monster called eVILFLARE with a sword called Nightblaze. The entrance to fiamasia is Mona Lisa. please reply and suggest a few titles asap
Hey, I’m writing a book about a 700 yr old teen who is trying to find her place in the world full of demons and hunters. It is set after a massive battle between the demon dimension and the human world, where everyone is trying to pick up the pieces. Here are some titles: An Age Over Dark Demons Shadowed Rooms (There is a creepy house that holds answers) The Dark Life with Light Recovery Picking up the pieces.
Abbey… Some titles are The Dying Girl and the Gays Through Thick and Thin Living and Loving
hey ! i wrote a story based on: i hated myself in that moment. i wrote about my father leaving my mum and me. i have a fight w/ my mum over the fact that she can’t cater to my needs and she tells me to leave and i tell her i hate her when in my heart it is me whom i hated. help please ?!
I never actually read comments left on websites. But admittedly I will say I have had a few good laughs. It was more interesting that what I was actually reading.
So I too have a question, I am writing something, which I call a memoir of sort, or auto-boigraphy, however apparently these aren’t very popular publishable genres. Unless you’re Mick Jagger or someone who has literally experienced the strangest and most macaube things in life, no one really gives a crap about you writing a book about yourself do they? Who cares?
I grew up in a religious cult, and broke out of it when I was 23. Amongst other things. Its not full of sunshine and roses I suppose, but it is funny here and there… at the moment my work is untitled. For the life of me I just can’t find a title that fits.
Inspiration is lacking.
so i really need help I’m trying to write a book. the main character lost his memory and kind of just gets dragged along to help people. its a medieval story i was thinking something like “the hero who forgot”
help please
I need help with two books I’m writing
The first one is about a teenage girl named Colleen, who catches cancer. The book is about her, and her family’s, struggle with her cancer. She has very little hope that she will survive. After finding about the cancer, she wonders whether she should end her own life, or let the cancer do it for her.
The second one is about a 12 year old girl who, while in a car with her mom’s boyfriend and her mother, loses her mother and her left leg in a car crash. The car crash was caused by her mother’s boyfriend using his phone while driving, causing the car to hit another car. The boyfriend is perfectly fine with very little injury. After the death of her mother, she is adopted by an English family with two sons, one the same age as her, the other 20. The oldest brother is a YouTuber and often films videos and puts them on the internet.
For the first one I came up with: “One or the other” and “Die for it”
For the second one: “Lose Me” and “Pogo Stick” (since she only has one leg)
My story is a fantasy story about a village girl named Cassa who is engaged to the prince Emory. She finds out she has the power of fire by accident on her wedding day in front of everyone in the kingdom. She flees into the wilderness where she discovers a group of people like her with a variety of powers. They help her learn to control her powers but later find out who she is, and they leave her alone and unable to fend for herself. She is about to give up when her cousin from the kingdom finds her and helps her. In the time that they spend together there she finds out from him that she isn’t just a village girl, but she is the only living heir to the throne. Prince Emory and his family have the power of mind control and made almost everyone forget who that they were actually just village people. In that Cassa finds out her cousin isn’t actually and together with the help of the group of super-powered people who left her but came back they have to work together to get her kingdom back from the mind-controlling “royal” family who is poisoning the minds of the entire kingdom. So that’s basically the concept of my story. I am stumped on title names. If you guys have any ideas I’d love to hear them. Thanks!
I’ve seen some great titles and support from this site and I’m in a pinch right now with my title/story…
I’ve been writing a short story for one of my classes and it’s a dystopian/ alternate future sort of story. It’s about how if the government never restarted (when it shut down due to conflict between Obama and Congress) and all higher government collapsed. Because of this many states fell to mobs and America became a country made of factions.
Anyways, the main character’s name is Coren Yu and his mother was killed by a group because they couldn’t pay back loans and he joins a rival mob.
The focus is less on him than on two other characters named Mitra and Zoe. Zoe was a daughter of a traitorous father but continued his line of work in the mob, and Mitra was an upstart who quickly gained the respect of her peers. Zoe and Coren favor the common automatic 9mm Berattas while Mitra used double Desert Eagles. The title I had in mind was “Even Eagles Fall” but I’m not sure if it kinda spoils the end. Any opinions or comments? I appreciate any and all help!
I’m writing a book about ten adventurers, but I’m not sure what to call it! Does anyone have some good ideas?
For Zoe: Kinds of Loss Crashing Down (I dunno?)
For Ginny: Flames in the Forest Cassa’s Curse Wedding Burns (I dunno, I’m bad at this)
For Ace: Faced with the Future (That’s all I got, I said I was bad at this XD)
I’m writing a book about a girl who is struggling with some things. Most of the time she feels like she is holding the whole world on her shoulders and on top of that she has to put on a different self and pretend to be something/someone she’s not. Her struggles grow harder when she encounters a boy from her past she thought she’d never see again. He messes up everything even worse when she realizes he’s not who he used to be and now she is head over heels for him even when he is downright rude and judgmental to her. He and everyone else hate her guts for no good reason that she can think of so she goes digging through her past to try to find comfort and reassurance and most of all peace with life. She finds things she doesn’t want to know like the fact that the whole rest of her family throughout the past was dearly loved but she many generations later is the most despised person in town. She writes every day to find peace so that maybe one day she will be known and she will be appreciated. The boy finds out about her digging and she later comes to realize that everything horrible he said and did to her was try to stop her from digging. She knows she will never be able to change the past but maybe one day something good will finally come out of all of this…
First of all I want to thank writersrelief for putting up this awesome page and also to everyone who’s commented and posted ideas. I love reading all of the responses and see how creative people are. Secondly titles. So I have a few ideas for mine but if you have any ideas I’m desperate to hear them. “Digging” “Digging for the Past” “Digging for Hope” “Human” “Hope in the Sunrise” Thanks and you guys rock!
For kobe- “Oblivious” or “Unknown Pasts”
For Zoe- “You Never Know What You Have” or “Grasping at the Past”
For Ginny- “Losing Comes before Knowing” or “When the Cursed Fall”
For Ace- I love “Even Eagles Fall” but if you were going for something different I would say “Flying and Falling” or “The Future Burns”
For Adventurer- I don’t know all that much about your story but based on what I’ve seen I would say “Quests” or “Ten for Ten” or “The Trials of Swashbucklers”
I’m not very good at this but I hope this at least sort of helped or set your minds to work for titles. Good Luck!
Hi! I’m writing a book about parent-child relationships for children…anyone have any ideas? It’s a Christian-inspirational book that will have pictures and fun stories inside to help readers catch a vision to love, honor and respect their parents! Here are the ideas I’ve come up with so far…I’d like a catchier title, though. I have a lot of the word “embrace” in there because my friend recommended it. 🙂 “Practice Makes Perfect – A book on Parent-Child Relationships” Embracing a heart for Parent-Child Relationships” “Embracing a Relationship with My Parents -A book for children on parent-child relationships” and my favorite so far: “They’re in Charge…what should I do?!? …any other ideas
Can you suggest some names for my book? So it’s about this girl named Rachel Turner who moves from Wahington, D.C. To a small town in northern Florida. She’s 13 years old and she doesn’t really want to he popular or fit in at all, but unfortunately that exact thing happens due to a rumor and her making friends with the wrong person. Also her cat runs away and she ends up having to run away from home for a while and ends up findig her cat on her quest. So there is a curse on the town and a curse on her family. So her l family had these rivals from another family waaaay back when and they put a curse on the family, but they didn’t know there was already a curse on that town from someone else in the fanily. The curse on the town is if someone from the rival family comes there, their whole family will be destroyed. And Rachel was adopted and moved to that town so she finds out about the curse and has to save her family which were stranded on an island in an airplane crash a few years ago but they are still living. So she has to find this locket becuase waaaaay back when someone in her family fell in love with someone from the rival family and she has their locket but needs the other one he break the curse. She doesn’t know about the other curse the rival family out on her, the seventh female born into the family (seven was the number of people in the family at the time) which can be reversed if the two lockers are found by her. She reverses the curse and gives her magic powers becuase the rival family had magic powers. The end So I have no idea what I should do for a title. Any suggestions?
I am writing a book about a woman named Ella who dies after saving her daughter from a house fire. Ella is unable to let her daughter, Isobel, go so she cannot move onto the Afterlife. Isobel is the only person who can see (ghost) Ella, but is a mute, so they are unable to communicate, and Ella is a ghost so she can’t touch anything including her daughter, so Isobel watches her mother go slowly insane but nobody believes her because nobody else can see her. HELP ME I NEED A BIOK TITLE AND SOON. This is a project for class due in April but it has to be a full(ish) novel. I really have no ideas, so if anybody could help me that would mean a lot.
Alice- how about “the price I paid” or something about taunting and isolation
Hey! This is a bit of a deviation from literature, but I could use some help on names as well. My story is a graphic novel, and it takes place on a giant space station, made to break down planets, asteroids, etc. into their base elements (its basically a giant, artificial dyson sphere shaped mine drifting through space).
The actual characters’ races are creatures that evolved on the surface of the station, known as Nymphs. There’s also the race that created the station, who fell into decline, but are still at large. They are considered higher beings of sorts by the Nymphs.
The characters themselves are a Nymph named Tachi, a halfbreed of the two named Haiku, and one of the higher beings, whose named Mochi. Tachi is a deserter from his empire’s army. He finds Haiku and Mochi along the way to find a new home, and they all travel together, trying to find a place of their own.
The landscape is much like a planet’s, except for old industrial structures are everywhere, going up into the sky until out of sight.
Can someone think of a title about a book that I need to submit at school, I mean I’m making a book project because my professor said so. The genre is poetry with essays and short stories of my personal life. So? Can someone think of a good title?
My story starts out with one of the two main characters, Avalon, dying in the woods alone. The other main character, Emery, finds her unconscious and brings her back to his campsite. He falls asleep while sitting next to her that night and is startled to find that he has entered her dream. She is all scared because she is trapped in the nightmares in her head, so seeing Emery freaked her out even more especially because he would always die i her dreams right before he woke up, leaving her alone in her head. Eventually they start getting along and form a friendship while overcoming her nightmares. When they finally overcome them all they both wake up in the real world only to find Avalon on her last dying moments. Right as she takes her last breath he kisses her and she is gone. So that’s basically my story, but I’m not sure what to call it. If you guys have any ideas I’d love to hear them. Thanks and Happy Easter!
BirdSetFree That is so sad!This is just an idea but it could be called Nightmares,In Her Dying Breath, Wake Up, It’s just a dream etc. Alice: Maybe The walls are talking, speak no evil, It’s all in your head or sign language. I don’t know really, just a few ideas:)
Hey, Bellatrix! Here are some ideas: the seventh daughter bloodlines family ties the curse the girl/boy in the locket
Hello! So I’ve had this idea blooming in my head for a while know but now that I’ve started writing it I have no idea about how to come up with a title for it. Basically there is a dancer named Astrid Avelyset. She has been forbidden of many things by her mother, some of which include individuality, friends, boys, and most importantly dancing. She runs away from her home realm the Eternal Vale and her mother for a new beginning in the Winter Isles, but things don’t go quite so well as she had planned. She runs into a band of thieves who capture her and bring her to the Hollow Desert (which is an arctic tundra thought to be basically devoid of all life) where their army of men is. She is forced to perform for them and please their every whim. However, she has one sympathizer that no one knows about. He goes by the name of Eliah Lukkas. I haven’t figured it all out yet but thats a start on what I have. Any title ideas? Thanks!
Whilst investigating the death of a local nurse, Ocean Parkes uncovers a legend about a supernaturally-cursed old piano circulating throughout Atlanta. as soon as anyone uses the piano he/she has exactly 4 days left to live. The doomed few appear to be ordinary people during day to day life, but when photographed they look ghostly. A marked person feels like a iceberg to the touch. Ocean gets hold of the piano, refusing to believe the superstition. A collage of images flood her mind when she touches it: an old newspaper headline about an unfortunate accident, bloody body parts scattered around a crime scene, a crumpled old man grieving his life away. When Ocean notices her arms take on the icy properties, she realizes that the curse of the old piano is true and calls in her friend, a lawyer named Mathias Cameron, to help. Mathias examines the piano and willingly submits himself to the curse. By doing so he adds himself to the queue for a supernatural death. He finds that his visions are very similar to Ocean’s. Mathias and Ocean pursue a quest to uncover the meaning of the visions, starting with a search for the crumpled old man, a cure, and a deadly kiss. The question still remains. Will they be able to stop the curse before their time is up?
So that’s basically my horror story, but I need some input on titles. I would LOVE to hear your opinions as they would be of great help to me. Thanks!!!! ~Lila (P.S. Yes there is a little romance in this story, but it is not the main focus.)
For Ember -Stuck in Hollow -Trapped in normal -Saving Astrid -Dance for me -Follow the rules thtese arent very good titles but maybe they spark an idea in your head. For Lila Payne -playing into supernatural -as time runs out -play for me -don’t touch the keys (this one sounds a little funky) -The discovery of Ocean Parkes… I dnt know I’m not the best at titles but I hoped this helped…
I’m having trouble coming up with a title for my book… it is about a 16 year old girl who finds out she has these “powers” which allow her to travel to a different world where she’s destined to live and protect the kingdom from demons which haunt the land.
I still haven’t got much, but what do think about either:
The Immortal Truth
Kings, Queens, and Demons
Hey, just to be unique I too need help creating a tile for my story. It revolves around a young teenage couple (16-18), they become friends and there love / friendship cultivate for a year before they finally get together. Only 6 months later the male protagonist develops a cancerous brain tumor. Surgery is possible but 8 / 10 die and its unlikely (if he survives) he will be fully functional afterwards. He chooses not to have the surgery. His health declines and the ending is he leaves to go have the surgery disappearing in the night because he would rather dietrying to live than die forgetting who he is. The writing perspective alternates between the two male and female protagonist. Any help at all would be appreciated, Thanx
I need help so bad right now. I need an idea of a title of my story… This girl’s life changes after a man brings her to a whole other world saying she’s able to save that world. Any ideas???
I need help how does – The clouds cancer sound honestly I need help.
For George: you might try “Hit and Run”, a play on words. My favorite title (off the top of my head, because it’s one of my favorite novels) is “A Prayer For Owen Meany.” The title made me wonder “Why does Owen need prayer and what is that prayer?” If the title elicits wonder or a question we want answered, it’s a good one too.
As another commenter mentioned earlier, titles can always be changed by the publisher. Remember, you are using a “working title.” That said, always try to use the best working title you can come up with. The advice in this article is sound.
I belong to a writer’s group and we help each other with this sort of thing. Try to find a supportive group that will be honest with you about your material. You will grow from the experience and your writing will show it.
Does anyone know what a good title would be for a story about a lesbian living in a household with a homophobic father who starts to hate her after he finds out she’s gay? The theme of the story is that acceptance is a powerful thing. Please, and thank you!
Writing a story about a lesbian girl who has been in a relationship for a long time with someone she loves but the spark and butterflies are gone. She falls in love with her best friend who also loves her but can’t seem to decide if she wants the relationship or not. She also falls in love with the new girl across the street. It is all about her deciding what to do and who she wants to be with. She loves them all.
How does this sound?
Love at First.. Second.. Third? Sight
A lesbian girl who is in love with a girl she has been with for a long time, but the butterflies are gone along with the spark. She falls for the new girl who moved into the neighborhood and her best friend who also loves her but can not seem to decide whether or not she wants to be in a relationship.
How about this title:
What do you think?
I’m writing about this boy and how music saves his life and forever changes it for the better. What should I call it?
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Ok, so I’m new at this but i’ve decided to write my first story, and I’ve got a basis and some parts written, but I can’t for the life of me figure out a title. This is what the story is about:
A boy (Tony) is ‘chosen’ for a set of trials that will occur randomly throughout his everyday life. Others before him have failed and even died in some of these trials, but he is doing exceptionally well. But as he completes the trials, he is beginning to find that his ‘testers’ are becoming greedy, and a man who he thought was crazy is now starting to make more and more sense. Now the boy (Tony) must choose, who is the real enemy?
Can anybody help, please?
i am writing a story about a girl who has her magical powers triggered in a storm, and all sorts of danger comes to her. any title suggestions?
Sierra, how about Melody for Life?
Rae, how about “how much love is too much?” or “changing Love” Sierre, how about “(boys name)’s notes” or Scaling (boys name)”? the book cow, what about “finding enemys” or “testing Tony”? Golden girl Oriana, need more info (power? name? dangers?)
I am writing a YA book about kids growing up together in an orphanage, MC’s names are Raven (the girl) and Lieth (boy). they start out at 5 and the book fallows their lives through 18, Raven wants revenge & keeps running away to find her parents killers and Leith does not know that he is from a family of wolf shifters until the end of the book. I already have an plan for a sequal but can not find a title!! please any ideas? i have considered “Ravens wolf”, “Ravens revenge”, “A Raven,a Wolf and a Way”, “An Orpahanes Revenge”….
Reading Rita, Here is some more extra info on my story: My main character is called Auriela, and she goes camping with a group of friends. on the first night, a large storm takes place, and somehow triggers her powers. I don’t know exactly how to describe her power, except that it is like a multi-colored dust/cloud that is thin and roundish. For the exact picture go to Pinterest, type in story inspiration, and look for the picture called “Which magic spell do you need”? That’s my inspiration. As for dangers, I’m not that sure yet…perhaps you could help me with that?
As for your story title, how about “The Night Raven Came Back”?
Thanks, GoldenGirlOriana
I am writing a book about myself, the difficult times I went through, sweet memories I have of the past and how I managed to pull through. I can’t find an appropriate title for the book, please help.
I am writing a fiction story on this website called wattpad and I can’t think of a title about a little girl
Ebbynette, what about “sweet memories”? Also, my book is a sort of steampunk novella set in Victorian London. It’s about a girl who gets kidnapped by a group of cyborg assassins. They implant a microchip into her brain so she has to obey them. I was thinking “My own worst enemy”?
So I have multiple title ideas for my book. Unnatural, A Botanist's Guide to a World Without Plants, One of Them, Quality Fakes, My Wings That Cannot Fly, Yes and No, Real But Not Real The book is a sci-fi about the world in the future. The main character, Amari, is a botanist. But being a botanist isn't studying plants anymore, it's making them. Fake nature is respected a beautiful and civilized while true wildlife is seen as hideous and savage. The world is completely urban except for small areas with absolutely no human life. Alternate titles or best one out of my list?
Gerzelda- out of all your titles I like A Botanist’s Guide to a World without Plants, but another thing you could do would be to have a one-worded title and then put A Botanist’s… in smaller print beneath it. (example- Unnatural: A Botanist’s Guide to a World without Plants)
I am writing a story where basically the main character goes unconcious at random intervals of time and each time she wakes up she finds herself covered in blood and all the people around her are dead. She vows never to get close to anyone again and removes herself from civilization to protect all the potential victims. An organzation set up by the government to help dangerous people like herself finds and recrutes her to help her gain control of her curse. It all goes smoothly until she starts getting close to some of the workers and she falls unconscious and wakes up to find them dead. When the other workers discover this they do everything in their power to separate her from all human contact, and she realizes that they were never there to help her. They were there for research and prevention. The other prisoners already know this and when she breaks out of her “specially designed” cell she frees the other prisoners, and they escape the compound together. Once they are out they band together for a while because they are on the run from the government, but she suspects something is wrong with some of the other former prisoners. In the night the ones she suspected try to kill as many of the others as they can , and they run leaving a note for the others saying she was dangerous and killed many people and they themselves barely escaped her the night before. As much as she tries to deny this all of the others except two don’t believe her and they try to flee but they are dead before they can. The two other remaining former prisoners are both male. One is almost as deadly as she is, and the other does not have as deadly as powers as the other but he thrives on seeing goodness and love in people. The threesome travel a good ways more undisturbed until the government tracks them down. She blacks out, and she wakes up in a field of waving grain and the sun is rising. She looks around and sees not only the government agents dead but also the body of one of her two only friends (the one without much power). The books ends there. Any ideas for titles?
One of the best ways to find a good and sophisticated title is Latin, Ancient Hellenic, Gaelic and Old Norse. Latin and Ancient Hellenic are better for something arcane with lots of sorcery, Gaelic about knights and glory and Old Norse about something epic such as a really strong warrior who turned evil and then many lords united to defeat him. Mainly old languages are the key to a mysterious title that still makes sense.
Hey! I am a 12 year old, currently writing my first story about a 14 year old girl named Emma who has had lung cancer for 4 years. she hasn`t been to school since she was diagnosed so she had no friends, except her brother Ben. Emma and Ben became best friends through out her time at home, but when the doctors tell her that there is nothing they can do for her for the time being, her parents decide to let her go back to school. During her time at school, she makes 2 awesome friends, Jade and Ryder, but she does not tell them she has cancer. She was very happy until one night she woke up unable to breathe. when they got to the hospital, they found out that her tumor had grown and that there was nothing they could do to save her. Once she found this out, she had to tell Jade and Ryder. They forgave her, and everything went back to normal, except she didn`t go back to school again. after she left the hospital, the doctors told her since she was dying, she could make a wish with the Make a Wish foundation, and she chose to go to Paris. Since she is a painter, while she was there, she painted a picture of the Eiffel tower and entered it into an art auction, but she died before she could bring it there. Jade and Ryder bring it for her, and a very rich man buys her painting and puts it in his art museum with her story underneath it, and donates one million dollars to cancer research. I am very stuck for a title, so any suggestions would be awesome. Thanks!
I’m writing a story about a girl (Lana) who bumps into another girl (Lauren) her age in the street. Lana discovers that Lauren is new in town and is starting at the same school Lana goes to. They also discover that they’re both aspiring magicians. They post videos on YouTube, and get noticed very quickly for their tricks. They perform in town and get noticed by a mysterious benefactor. A year later, they’re only 16 years old, yet they’re world famous magicians performing shows across the world. What should I title it?
I’m writing a novel about a girl who is lonely and nobody notices her (they ignore her) and she is always feeling like she is holding the entire world on her shoulders. One day she decides to run away and turns into a right messed up girl and joins a bad influenced group of gangsters and attempts to be someone she isn’t. I need a title that is powerful and won’t give anything away. I was thinking oblivious or digging for the past but I think they are slightly too simple. Please help me!
You may find this article about coming up with titles helpful: https://writersrelief.com/blog/2013/08/great-title-for-your-book-or-story-or-poem/
Writer’s Relief
I’m currently 12 years old and am writing a book about a girl that always feels that she is holding the entire world on her shoulders. Nobody likes her and nobody ever notices her. One day she decides to run away and joins a gang of gangsters and begins to gather bad influences from them. She starts smoking.
I need a story title — please help me!
Thank you, Writer’s Relief!
I’m working on a story about a girl that was stolen by faeries as a baby and lived with all the mythical creatures for 17 years. She finds a dragon egg and has to return the hatchling to the rest of the dragons but dwarves as well as many other people/creatures try to stop her, kidnap the dragon, kill them, etc. but I have no idea what to call it.
Kristina, you could title the book something like ‘How We Changed’
Amazing ideas
I’ve written about 10 poems and I want to improve my talent. I think my poems are very interesting.
I’m writing a story about this girl who has a diary and I need a title. My friend is also writing a book called “Diary of the Lost”. I think that was awesome, but I can’t think of a title for my book.
I’m writing a book about a 16 year-old girl who gets dragged into the woods by wolves and she starts to become one when she is walking out of church. She meets the human/wolf (Sam) who carried her back to her house and then passes out because she’s panicking. She wakes up in a car with the human/wolf who talks to her. She finds out it’s her last year of being human before she’s a wolf forever. There is a wolf named Sheila who is trying to keep them from falling in love. She threatens Sam that she will kill the girl if he doesn’t love her. I am on chapter 8 right now and wondering what to call the book. Can someone please help me with a title?
I’m writing a book about two brothers who get drafted in the Army during World War II. One brother is assigned to a Battalion that will take part in an operation that was part of D-Day (The Allied Invasion of Northern France). The other brother is assigned to a Paratrooper division in Operation Dragoon (The Allied Invasion of Southern France. The Brothers think they never going see each other again, but miraculously meet up in Paris at the end of the War during the German Surrender.
Chris Creek; fantastic idea! How about “Brothers In Arms”? I’m writing a book about a viking prince who forces a gracious prince from another country to assist him in starting a war. Somewhere down the line, the viking prince falls in love with the gracious prince and is unsure of what to do. He knows that the gracious prince does not want this war to go on, but the viking prince does want it; he just isn’t sure which love is stronger. I don’t want it to be really sappy/romantic though; it’s kind of RPG-ish, and it has some dark/weird themes to it. I guess the main theme is war. The romance would be more of a subplot.
I have a book. Currently that I was thinking the title is just too much. It’s a p.I novel and she’s looking for lemurs. I called it eeny, Meany : A Sterling honeybloom p.i. Novel. But that seems a lot. I planned to make this a series and eeny,Meany for first one mini moe for the second.the rest it more like a subtitle. It’s on Amazon and just not selling very well but it’s not getting any reviews which is like to have more. I’ve changed the cover so checking maybe title too much then I’ll have to change book or description next.
I am writing a book on Wattpad about a 17-year old girl in high school who struggles with fake friends, bullies, and cheating boyfriends. She doesn’t really have any friends because she is too busy with school, chores at home, and work but everything changes when she meets an 18-year old bad boy transfer student. I am in need of title that would fit my story.
Reply to Tayler The titles I thought of were: High School: Fake Society, Rose are Red, Violets are Blue, I hate The fake friends Too, Bully Me Not, The Bad Boy saved me from the Cheaters, Beaters, Haters, and Fakers
I’m writing a book. It’s about a boy and a girl who have been best friends since childhood but they become something more. And the boy has to move but they meet later. Can anyone help me come up with a title? Thanks!
I’m writing a book about just the lifespan of an 11 year old girl, who gets depressed, realizes she’s gay, struggles with friends, parent’s get divorced, her sister is forced to move out, you know, everyday stuff.
What’s a good title?
I’m working on a book about a young girl named Charlotte. However, she has had horrifying nightmares since a freakishly young age. Most of them being violent, and others being plain unexplainable. But when she starts seeing the demons from her nightmares while she is awake, she begins to lose her sanity by becoming EXTREMELY paranoid. In fact, it’s become so horrible to the point where she can’t tell her nightmares from reality and is stuck not knowing if she is awake or not. This leads to many complications, involving her not wanting to sleep and a dramatic and violent change in her personality. I’m thinking about the title, and I’ve settled on Somniphobia. Which basically means “The fear of sleeping”
I am writing a book on Wattpad and I don’t know what to call it, I was thinking on writing a poem or like a story but I don’t know what to write about either. Someone please help
I’m writing a story about a 12-year-old girl whose attacked by monsters and has to save her friends and her 2 dogs. Her name is Ruby McKellar and she lives in the mountains. I need a book name.
I’m currently trying to write a book on Wattpad. It’s basically about this dystopian city named Taellis. And then there is a prophecy about how there will be 4 people who will process the 4 elements of nature. One of the 4, her name is Phoenix, she will ally with the 3 others to bring back humanity to Taellis and all that kind of stuff. I’m really serious about this book and I’ve decided to make it ‘The Phoenix Prophecy’. But I’m not so rlly sure.
I’m writing an essay on “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” What do you think of the following for my title: King’s Letter from Jail
So I love books, and I’ve been trying to write a few. What always happens with me is that I start, but never seem to finish them. One is about a girl whom after being put in the hospital begins receiving notes in a code. She eventually cracks it, and ends up going on a quest after figuring out that it’s from her supposedly dead sister. Another one is about a normal girl, nothing really special about her, and then terrible things start happening. She doesn’t know why, and she later discovers she might be the only one who can save her town from destruction. I’m also writing a Harry Potter fanfiction. It’s a love story. But anyways when The trio(along with everyone else) starts going to Hogwarts, Draco has a crush on Hermione, but she is muggle-born, and his parents wouldn’t approve of him dating her. He eventually tells Hermione, and they end up together. Hermione tries to help him build the courage to tell his dad about him and Hermione. I hope this didn’t offend anyone, if you don’t ship Dramione and would rather them separate, but I thought it would be a good story line. Once again I can never seem to finish a book once I start. Any ideas for titles will be appreciated, as well as any tips to finishing a book. Thank you.
I need help with my title for my book here is a little description of my main character
Lilith Dee May is a 23-year-old. She is loyal and smart, but can also be very bossy and a bit too serious sometimes. She is English. She is average-height with Pale skin, Salmon pink hair and Red eyes. She grew up middle class. After her father, mother and sisters died when she was young, she was raised by her Grandma. Lilith’s best friend is a pet she found in her grandma’s attic. They have a very strong friendship.
hi everyone my name is faith Dyan from Philippines i need your help because i don’t know what’s the perfect or suitable title for my 1st Wattpad story.
here’s the description A girl who never tell or admit her feelings to the boy that she love because she was afraid and also that boy had a past so that she don’t want herself to be hurt and she doesn’t know that the boy also loves her.
that’s the description i hope that someone will help me thank you very much
Does anyone want any help with book names? i enjoy coming up with them.
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12 Famous Book Titles That Come From Poetry
In this post. we’ve shared a list of 12 famous book titles that come from poetry .
Naming a book is difficult, but you can find inspiration in poetry.
[Must-Read: 8 Points To Consider When You Name Your Book ]
You may not realise it, but many famous authors have taken the titles of their books from poems. Here are 12 of them.
1. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold comes from “I Knew a Woman” by Theodore Roethke.
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain!
…I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
3. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is taken from “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats .
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
4. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck comes from “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough” by Robert Burns .
But little Mouse, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often askew, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray; Along the cool sequester’d vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
6. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust is taken from “Sonnet 30″ by William Shakespeare .
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
7. Endless Night by Agatha Christie comes from “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake .
Every night and every morn, Some to misery are born, Every morn and every night, Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.
8. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway comes from “Meditation XVII” by John Donne.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
9. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers comes from “The Lonely Hunter” by William Sharp.
O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing: O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing. Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still, But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is taken from “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings — I know why the caged bird sings!
11. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald comes from “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats .
Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
Passage to India! Struggles of many a captain–tales of many a sailor dead! Over my mood, stealing and spreading they come, Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach’d sky.
If you enjoyed this post, read these:
- Poetry 101: What Is A Poem?
- Poetry 101: Kinds Of Poems: The Ballad
- Poetry 101: Kinds Of Poems – The Villanelle
- Poetry 101: Kinds Of Poems – The Limerick
- Poetry 101: Kinds Of Poems – The Haiku
- Poetry 101: Kinds Of Poems – Free Verse
- Poetry 101: Kinds Of Poems – The Sonnet
Original Article Source: http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/2012/02/29/12-famous-book-titles-that-come-from-poetry/
- Literary Trivia , Poetry
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aestheticpoems.com
Pretty Poetry For Everyday
41+ Good Poem Titles To Use
Inside : 41+ good poem titles that grab reader attention and effectively capture the essence of the poems themselves.
While poetry can often seem like an art form with strict rules and guidelines including rhyme, meter, and structure, it can actually be quite abstract. Though rigid formats including sonnet, Haiku, and villanelles are traditional, it is just as common to make use of free or blank verse, wherein the rules are vague or nonexistent. Regardless of format, there are virtually no poetry rules regarding the subject or the title of your work: you can write one about anything you’d like.
When the possibilities are nearly endless, it can be difficult to think up an effective, creative poem title. Even famous artists find that writing a good poem title can be harder than writing the poem itself. Read further for some inspiration for creating a good poem title that captures the attention of your audience, but also nicely summarizes your words.
Good Poem Titles About Life
Since poetry has historically been used as a medium for connecting with other humans, a good chunk of all the world’s poetry is written about life itself. “Life” as a topic can be vague and broad, and so creating a poem title about life can feel overwhelming. Here’s a list of good poem titles about life:
- If by Rudyard Kipling. This is a lengthy piece, but “If” is such a good poem title about life because the word “if” brings about a world of possibility, which reflects the meaning of the art itself.
- The Girl Who Was Afraid to Be by Nikita Gill. This is a good poem title that entices readers because it almost seems like the name of a story, and they’ll want to read on.
- How Did You Die? by Edmund Vance Cooke. This very forward title immediately evokes emotion in audiences. Making use of a question is also an innovative technique for creating good poem titles.
- Thank You by Ross Gay. While the phrase “thank you” alone doesn’t signify that this is written about life, it is unique and reflects the message that the author is trying to convey, which is to be grateful for living.
- Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye.
- Life Cycle of a Common Man by Howard Nemerov.
- Life After Fiction by Cathryn Essinger.
- Relive & Relieve .
- “This Life.” You can get creative and think of variations of this for a good poem title about life that reflects the topic or emotions of your writing, including the following:
- “This Complicated Life.”
- “This Long Life.”
- “This Simple, Lovely Life.”
- “What it Means to Live.”
- “Cycling.”
Creative Poetry Titles
Many authors tend to name their works after the subject of the poem or after a word that appears in the lines of the piece. However, it’s very common for titles to be words that do not appear anywhere in the lines, or that seemingly have nothing to do with the work itself. These creative poetry titles reflect the nature of poetry itself: a sense of abstractness wherein the reader interprets the art in their own subjective way.
- Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara. “Having a coke with you” is a phrase that simply describes a very specific situation, and people want to read how such a seemingly commonplace situation could warrant an entire poem.
- Revolutionary Letter #1 by Diane di Prima. Including the number “one” makes for a very effective and creative poetry title; readers want to know if there are other letters that will follow this one, and why this is #1.
- Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House by Billy Collins. The word “another” gives readers a sense of connection to the writer, like they already know all of the other reasons. The word “gun” is also very attention-grabbing.
- Ruth by Pauli Murray. When artists title their work with a name, they signify that it’s very personal. However, audiences still want to read to find out what is so important about the titular individual that made someone write a poem about them!
- Diet Moons by Diane Wakoski. No one knows what the heck a “diet moon” is. This is an incredibly effective, good poem title because few people have ever heard this phrase, so they’re going to want to find out what it means.
- A Boat Down the River of Yellow Silt by Kimiko Hahn.
- Advice to Young Poets by Martin Espada.
- Becoming a Forest by Ama Codjoe.
- Coca Morning by Bob Kaufman.
- Run . The word “run” gives readers an immediate jolt, and a sense of urgency or even fear that will make them need to read further.
- Rough Draft .
- “I Wrote This in the Dark.”
- “Untitled.”
- “A Poem for You.”
- “Don’t Read This.”
Famous Poems with Great Titles
Many famous poems have been circulated for centuries. They retain their popularity due to their ability to tap into our deepest emotions and the human experiences that connect us. However, some famous poems are widely known for their notorious titles. The following are works of art that almost everyone knows of simply because they have such good poem titles.
- The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. By now, you might have noticed that the best titles elicit curiosity. Titles that make the reader curious make the reader determined to find out what the rest of the piece is about, and what it could mean.
- Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. Written by one of the most well-known authors today, the title is attention-grabbing because it’s a sentence fragment which is something one doesn’t typically hear in conversation, and its brevity is intriguing. “Still I Rise” from what? Readers want to find out.
- The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. Everyone knows Edgar Allen Poe’s foreboding raven and the ominous, gloomy feeling it emits, which is why the title is so effective.
- How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barret Browning. This is a good example of a creative poem title that is actually used as the first line of the poem. The rest of the lines answer the question asked in the title.
- Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas.
- Song of Myself by Walt Whitman.
- Hope is the Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson.
- This is the Poem I Did Not Write by Rita Dove.
- The Poem I Didn’t Write by Raymond Carver.
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
- The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot.
More Poems That You’ll Love
The wonderful thing about poetry is that anyone can write it, and it can be written about any topic. To gather inspiration for your own art and poetry, you don’t have to read genres or authors that are similar to what you write. Reading a variety of poetry is a great way to generate creativity and find new ideas regarding structure, content, and style. Check out these poetry collections to spark your inner artist!
- 30 Passionate Poems About Love . One of the most common topics to write poetry about is love. Love evokes a feeling of deep passion that often begs to come out in creative outlets. This list is bound to elicit romantic feelings and ideas for good poem titles.
- 30 Warming Winter Poems . In the cold winter months, we tend to find comfort in cozying up indoors with some good reading. Check out this list of winter poems that capture that cozy feeling and will make you feel warm and fuzzy.
- 27 Impactful Wolf Poems . Wolves are mystifying creatures that are rarely seen in real life unless you’re deep in nature. They are known for their strength and for their pack-mindedness. These poems are about wolves, but they capture themes of loyalty, independence, strength, and the beauty of nature.
- Bio and Books
Use Your Imagination in Writing a Title for Your Poetry Book
I believe poetry book titles are among the hardest ones to come up with. You can study your bookshelf to inspire you to write a title or study titles at a library or bookstore.
In looking through my shelf of poetry books, I see some wonderful, evocative titles that may spur you to come up with your own.
Whether or not I thoroughly enjoy each poem in the book, my favorite titles are:
1) Crinkled Sunshine (Members’ Anthology 2000, Haiku Society of America)
2) A Solitary Leaf , (Members’ Anthology 1997, Haiku Society of America)
3) Before All The Leaves Are Gone , by Gary Hotham
4) The Unworn Necklace , by Roberta Beary
5) handful of sand , by Stanford M. Forrester
6) The Windswept Corner , by Alan Pizzarelli
7) Fragments, by Ed Alison Williams
8) piano practice , by Tom Painting
9) The Orange Balloon , by Penny Harter
10) room full of chairs , by John S. O’Connor
11) A Dash Through Leaves , by Penny Griffin
12) Something Unerasable , by John Stevenson
13) curve into curve , by anne mckay
14) The Shape of Water , by Robert Spiess
15) The Heron’s Legs , by Robert Spiess
16) Sailing Alone Around the Room , by Billy Collins
17) Like a Crane at Night , by Gail Sher
18) the duck’s wake , by Jeff Witkin
19) . . . the path of the bird , by vincent tripi
Keep in mind that often the simpler the title, the more evocative it is. Search deep inside of yourself for a title.
Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio .
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About Charlotte Digregorio
5 responses to use your imagination in writing a title for your poetry book.
Hi, Charlotte, I can’t tell you how many books I bought on the title alone… Often extremely misleading!
That’s true. Many books with great titles, aren’t so good. But, choose a great title, and write a great book!
P.S. I have to tell you, the title of Bob Spiess’ book: The Turtle’s Ear … I thought was so very perfect. I always loved that title.
I have all of Spiess’ books. What a great poet and nice man!
I never got to see The Turtle’s Ear! But I keep his Speculations within easy reach…there is always something worthwhile to consider in them.
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Story Titles and Tips
- Part One-Thoughtful
- Part 2-Mixed
- Part 3-Romance
- Part 4-Lyrical
Part 5-Poetry
- Part 6-Historical
- Part 7-How to get more reads,votes and comments
- Part 8-Short,Silly and Simple Questions
- Part 9-Deep
- Part 10-Angelic
- Part 11-Soul
- Part 12-Clichès
- Part 13-Catchy
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Want a title for your book?There are hundreds here. Want a title for a chapter of your book? Hundreds here Want tips to become better writer and better wattpader?Plenty here. Want an idea to get inspired?Hundreds of Titles here that would give ideas...
# begginnersguide # clichétitles # helpbook # inspiration # questionsandanswers # romantictitles # tips # titles
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-My Lady Of Love
-With The Moon
From Heart,With Love
From the soul of my heart
Deep in my Heartbeats
Angel's complain
War of Peace
Long way Love
-The Anonymous Lover
-Beside The Tree
-Under the sky
-Almost Heaven
-Tears For Someone
-Roses And Letters
-Eternal Happiness
-Following Shadows
-As The Sun Sets
-The Unknown Letter
IMAGES
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An author uses a book’s title to give important information about the contents of the book to the reader. Writers often claim that choosing a title is one of the most important aspects of publishing a written work.
Poem titles should be italicized. This rule applies to titles of poems that are situated within text. If the poem titles are at the top of a page or on the front cover of a report, they do not need to be italicized.
To alphabetize a series of books, arrange the books in order from A to Z using the first letters of the first word of each title. The words “a,” “an,” and “the” are typically ignored.
Themes like war, vengeance, hate, love, strife, darkness can influence the title. Please take a look at some of them: Daisy's Dilemma, Collected
Tadpoles in My Jar · Raindrops On the Pain · The scent of rocks in the storm · From the Porch Rocker · The Basement at Grandpa's House · The More I Try to Forget
Do you mean to tell us the fundamental thingness of things? Such titles—Etel Adnan's Sea and Fog, Brian Teare's Sight Map, Paul Celan/Pierre
And a great poem can touch that lonely, dark part of our hearts and wake ... The book's titles come from Pedro Scaron's El Capital, the 1976
Elements Of Great Book Titles · Poetic language. Some of the best titles — the ones we can't forget — use evocative language to make a statement. · Action words.
Poetic language. Some of the best titles—the ones we remember—use evocative language to make a statement. Sometimes, the language verges on
12 Famous Book Titles That Come From Poetry · 1. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold comes from “I Knew a Woman” by Theodore Roethke. · 2. A Handful
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by. Gabriel García Márquez. 4.11 avg rating — 901,935 ratings. score: 15,330, and 161 people voted Loading
Creative Poetry Titles · Having a Coke with You by Frank O'Hara. · Revolutionary Letter #1 by Diane di Prima. · Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a
1) Crinkled Sunshine (Members' Anthology 2000, Haiku Society of America) · 2) A Solitary Leaf, (Members' Anthology 1997, Haiku Society of America).
Part 5-Poetry · -With The Moon · From Heart,With Love · From the soul of my heart · Deep in my Heartbeats · Angel's complain · War of Peace · Long way Love · -The