Writing Titles of Poetry: How to Title a Poem

Sean Glatch  |  August 7, 2026  | 

writing titles of poetry: how to title a poem

Shakespeare, William Carlos Williams, and Emily Dickinson had the luxury of naming their poems numbers. Sonnet 18! XXII! Poem 446! Such lovely and vague titles of poetry. Unfortunately for us modern writers, we need to know how to title a poem.

Titles are rarely the parts of poems people remember most. But good poem titles, like good first lines, invite the reader into the world of the work. Poem titles can name the subjects of their poems, but they can also do so much more.

For us modern writers, we need to know how to title a poem.

This article guides you through the process of writing titles of poetry. You can return here no matter where you are in the drafting process: whether you’re titling a final draft, first draft, or want to start from scratch.

Writing Titles of Poetry: Contents

What Do Good Poem Titles Accomplish?

Good poem titles are in conversation with their poems themselves. They might offer a framework, a doorway, a raison d’être, etc.

Good poem titles are in conversation with their poems themselves.

No two poem titles need to accomplish the same things. But the following are useful tips for writing titles of poetry.

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Writing Titles of Poetry: Naming the Initiating or Generated Subject

I highly recommend any poet read Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town, which offers a great grounding in the craft and mindset of poetry writing.

For the sake of this article, I’ll highlight only the most salient idea I’ve taken from Hugo, which is that of the “initiating” or “generated” subject.

To Hugo, all poems have two subjects:

  • The Initiating Subject: The topic, idea, or thing that lead you into writing a poem.
  • The Generated Subject: The subject that the poem discovers or was actually, secretly, about the whole time.

For example, a poem about the ocean might end up being about your mother. The ocean was your initiating subject, but the generated subject was this parent-child relationship.

If it names the initiating subject, the generated subject might be more of a surprise—but, if the generated subject is more interesting (oceans, for example, have been written about ad nauseum), it might make more sense to go the generated route.

Successful titles of poetry might name the initiating or generated subject. If it names the initiating subject, the generated subject might be more of a surprise—but, if the generated subject is more interesting (oceans, for example, have been written about ad nauseum), it might make more sense to go the generated route.

For more on the initiating and generated subject, check out our article on how to start a poem:

https://writers.com/how-to-start-a-poem

Examples include:

Writing Titles of Poetry: Locating a Central Action or Tension

I’m using the word “locating” literally here, though it can also be a figurative location.

Poems often demand a sense of place. They occur in a particular time, location, or setting—even those poems that are entirely products of your own thoughtworld. This is especially true of a central action or tension in the poem: the unresolved or unresolvable conflict that drives the poet to paper.

As such, good poem titles might ground us in the poem’s reality, creating the space where reader and poet meet so that the poem can perform its magic.

Good poem titles might ground us in the poem’s reality, creating the space where reader and poet meet so that the poem can perform its magic.

Examples include:

Writing Titles of Poetry: Offering an Opposition to the Poem Itself

Successful poems are not necessarily a unified whole.

Some of them are, of course. And I’ll notice when a poem seems to be pulling from too many vocabularies, categories of image, ideas, aesthetics, etc.—seemingly with no real reason other than to do it.

But a lot of good poem titles will offer an opposition to what’s happening in the work. It might do this to offer clarity, broaden the poem’s meaning, introduce an important tension, or else expand the poem’s own conversation.

But a lot of good poem titles will offer an opposition to what’s happening in the work.

Here are some ways a poem’s title might create opposition:

  • Abstract/Concrete: If a poem’s body is more abstract, the title might offer a concrete or clarifying image or idea. Or vice versa!
  • Concision/Sprawl: A short poem (say, 2 or 3 lines long) might have a title that’s just as long as its body. A long poem could have a title that’s decidedly curt.
  • Tonal Variation: A title might be happy, ironically announcing a poem whose topics are actually rather sad or heavy. You can do this with pretty much any set of opposing tones, moods, or feelings.

Examples include:

Writing Titles of Poetry: Identifying Something Whose Presence is Only Otherwise Felt in the Poem

An image or idea can haunt a poem. It can have a kind of gravity that makes the poem possible. And it can stand outside of the poem, pulling the poem in its direction, but never allowing itself to be named—except, perhaps, in the title itself.

An image or idea can haunt a poem.

This idea is a bit more abstract, but sometimes a title does the work of identifying a central idea that is otherwise only felt in the poem. This point is similar to the point of an initiating or generated subject, but it deserves special attention because of how titles can help frame and clarify their poems. 

Examples include:

Writing Titles of Poetry: Repeating an Important Line or Phrase

Sometimes, a poet just knows when the language is so good it needs to be said again.

Of course, this shouldn’t be done just for the sake of ego. It has happened to me on more than one occasion that a poem exists entirely because of a single line. Whether or not the title frames that line as being the reason for its existence is another question, one more dependent on the generated subject than anything else.

This happens especially if that phrase represents the poem’s whole. 

Nonetheless, a poem might title itself after the line or phrase that made the rest of the poem possible. This happens especially if that phrase represents the poem’s whole. 

Examples include:

Learn more about the art of repetition here:

Repetition Definition: Types of Repetition in Poetry and Prose

Writing Titles of Poetry: Identifying Form

Good titles of poetry might identify the form of the poem itself.

I mean “form” here in two senses. The first, of course, is formality: whether or not the poem is a specific type of poetry form. Often, these forms are recognizable in the poetic canon—sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, ghazals, and the like—but they might also be new forms created by the poet, such as Jericho Brown’s duplex or Ruth Ellen Kocher’s gigan.

The second sense of “form” is whether the poem is borrowing from another kind of language. Poems, being shapeshifting beasts, may end up taking the form of other texts, such as an essay, a hypothesis, a statement, a memo, a letter, an email, etc. (For more on this, check out the topic of hermit crab poetry.)

Good titles of poetry might identify the form of the poem itself.

Examples include:

Writing “Out There” Titles of Poetry

This is not a standard of contemporary poetry titles, but I want to offer examples of one other type of title: those titles which are absolutely, ridiculously out there.

What do I mean by this? The below poem titles might help clarify:

That first title, of course, is further out there than the edge of our solar system. But what I mean by an “out there” poem title is a title where the voice, perspective, and weirdness of the poet is immediately on display.

What I mean by an “out there” poem title is a title where the voice, perspective, and weirdness of the poet is immediately on display.

No, titles don’t have to do this. Sometimes pithy and succinct works best. But titles like the ones above challenge conventional notions of what readers might expect from poetry, and I think it’s important for poets to do this, especially when there is so much to be said in the world that is often first said in poems.

I once ran a poetry workshop where I made my participants write wacky, out there sentences—with the covert goal of making one of those sentences the title of a poem. Really, this is a fun way to prompt poetry, because you have to figure out what kind of poem could possibly rise to answer the call of the wacky title.

If you’re interested, I’ve adapted that prompt to this article on beginning with titles.

Poem Title Ideas

Okay, so we’ve looked at some different goals that a poem’s title might accomplish. But maybe you’re still trying to figure out how to title yours?

Here are a few poem title ideas. Compare them with the poem you have already drafted, or treat them as doorways into writing new poetic drafts:

Use a Common Framework

Here are a few words or phrases I often see in titles of poetry:

  • Meditations on ______
  • Essay on ______
  • The ______ Question
  • Poem for ______
  • Prayer for ______
  • On ______

These kinds of titles don’t always land. They can be a little vague or overly summaristic. But that’s only true if those blank spots are filled with summaristic language. A poem titled “meditations on the poisoned cockroach wriggling next to my cat’s food dish,” for example, would be much more specific and surprising.

Borrow From an Existing Poem or Text

Sometimes, poets borrow existing language to title their poems. For example:

You can do this with any text, of course. Novels, movie dialogue, directions for pitching a tent, the stupid things politicians say, etc.

Do be sure to say your poem is “after” the poet or artist of the source text if your poem is directly inspired by a specific artist or writer.

Be Uncommonly Specific

I think there’s some notion that titles have to be elegant and brief, which is exactly why I like it when titles take up space. Sprawl.

For example, are you trying to decide whether your poem is about goldfish or childhood longing? Title it after both! Are you worried about your poem being too vague that the reader doesn’t “get it”? Give them a title that tells them everything they need.

Melissa Crowe’s fabulous title “When We’re in Bed and You Take Out Your Mouth Guard, I Know It’s On” is a good example of what I mean.

Titles are, after all, a form of “taking care of your reader”—something worth centering in any revision process.

Elevate the First Line Into the Title

Sometimes, a poet will make the first line of the poem the title instead. To be clear, the title is not repeated in the first line of the poem—instead, it is almost as if the poem begins with its second line.

A good example is “My god, girlhood ripened” by Savannah Brown, the full text of which you can find here.

Create Intrigue

This might contradict some of my advice elsewhere in this article, but, sometimes, less specificity is better.

What I mean is, a title can gesture towards its subject without naming it, and do so in a way that makes me want to know more.

Lee Trumpfheller’s “Tomorrow, No, Tomorrower is a great example for me. What does it mean to turn tomorrow into an adjective? (The poem only expands upon the play for language, never quite landing somewhere tangible, but being gloriously enigmatic and uncategorized.)

“Outbreaks by Kitchen McKeown is also a title that works for me, for similar reasons.

Alternately, there’s “How Some of It Happened by Marie Howe, which, strangely, makes me want to know what happened, and how.

Cautions With Poetic Titles

There are no hard and fast rules in poetry. Any time someone says there’s a rule, I want to break it, and can probably think of a successful poem that already does.

Nonetheless, I would advise you to be careful not to do the following in your titles. If you do, be sure to have a thoughtful reason, an artistic vision as to why.

Avoid…

  • Titling your poem “Poem.” Langston Hughes gets away with it, somehow, but the anonymity of that title rarely accentuates the poem.
  • Using a number as a title. Poems in antiquity are titled things like “XXII” or “Sonnet 18” because the fashions of poetry were different, but contemporary poetry demands more specificity. Unless, of course, your poem is about that number.
  • Using “Untitled” as a title. Unless the poem is about untitled things. Because “Untitled” is a title, though not a very descriptive one, and it does not take care of the reader the way they deserve.

More Poetry Writing Resources

Looking for more advice or inspiration? We’ve got you covered with the following websites and articles:

Craft Successful Poetry Titles at Writers.com

The classes at Writers.com well help you craft every aspect of your poem—title, body, and all. Take a look at our upcoming online poetry writing courses, where you’ll receive expert feedback on every poem you submit.

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Sean Glatch

Sean Glatch is a queer poet, storyteller, and educator in New York City. His work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Milk Press, One Art, on local TV, and elsewhere. When he's not writing, which is often, he thinks he should be writing.

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