On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 4:22:26 AM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

A mistake that poets often make is to use the last line of a poem as its title. (I just read another of those tonight; I won't name it, because it doesn't matter whose poem it was.)

It's easy enough to make that mistake. A poet ends a poem with a very powerful line. Because it's the best line in the poem, he decides to use it as the title, on the idea that the most powerful line will attract the most readers.

Why is it a mistake? Because a line is more powerful if one is reading or hearing it for the first time, and less powerful if one has read or heard it before. Every time a line is reused, it loses power;.if a reader already knows that line, he does not

have to concentrate on it but can simply skim through it. (A skilled poet learns to work around that, in poems where fixed lines are obligatory such as the triolet or villanelle), by subtly changing the lines themselves, or using the lines surrounding
them to change the meaning of otherwise identical lines.)

So: the poet has ended his poem with a powerful line. But he then robs the line of at least some, and possibly of all, of its power. Rather than reading that last line closely, and thinking "A-ha" or "Oh, wow", a reader will skim it and think "Oh, yeah"

or "Sure"; which is a much worse way to end the poem.

Good points....!!

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On Monday, August 23, 2021 at 5:13:51 PM UTC-4, tst...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 4:22:26 AM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

A mistake that poets often make is to use the last line of a poem as its title. (I just read another of those tonight; I won't name it, because it doesn't matter whose poem it was.)

It's easy enough to make that mistake. A poet ends a poem with a very powerful line. Because it's the best line in the poem, he decides to use it as the title, on the idea that the most powerful line will attract the most readers.

Why is it a mistake? Because a line is more powerful if one is reading or hearing it for the first time, and less powerful if one has read or heard it before. Every time a line is reused, it loses power;.if a reader already knows that line, he does

not have to concentrate on it but can simply skim through it. (A skilled poet learns to work around that, in poems where fixed lines are obligatory such as the triolet or villanelle), by subtly changing the lines themselves, or using the lines
surrounding them to change the meaning of otherwise identical lines.)

So: the poet has ended his poem with a powerful line. But he then robs the line of at least some, and possibly of all, of its power. Rather than reading that last line closely, and thinking "A-ha" or "Oh, wow", a reader will skim it and think "Oh,

yeah" or "Sure"; which is a much worse way to end the poem.

Good points....!!

After I'd posted this, it occurred to me that shortly before that I'd blogged Will's poem "God Smiles", which does exactly that. Yet it didn't bother me. Thinking about that, I remembered that I'd once used the title of a poem ("Afterglow") as the last *
word* in it, and that worked very well. So I think the phenomenon of the last line falling flat is correlated with how long that line is; the longer it is, the longer it takes to read, and the more likely a reader is to stop reading in the middle of it (
since he's already read it).

I should add that I got the idea of writing the above from another poem of Will's, that's in his SP as "Tired of Waiting," but which he'd recently blogged with the last line, "Spring is trapped in the crystal," as the title - which I didn't like at all.
Rather than argue with him about it, I decided to write a general essay on the subject.

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On Friday, August 27, 2021 at 12:19:13 PM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

On Monday, August 23, 2021 at 5:13:51 PM UTC-4, tst...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 4:22:26 AM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

A mistake that poets often make is to use the last line of a poem as its title. (I just read another of those tonight; I won't name it, because it doesn't matter whose poem it was.)

It's easy enough to make that mistake. A poet ends a poem with a very powerful line. Because it's the best line in the poem, he decides to use it as the title, on the idea that the most powerful line will attract the most readers.

Why is it a mistake? Because a line is more powerful if one is reading or hearing it for the first time, and less powerful if one has read or heard it before. Every time a line is reused, it loses power;.if a reader already knows that line, he does

not have to concentrate on it but can simply skim through it. (A skilled poet learns to work around that, in poems where fixed lines are obligatory such as the triolet or villanelle), by subtly changing the lines themselves, or using the lines
surrounding them to change the meaning of otherwise identical lines.)

So: the poet has ended his poem with a powerful line. But he then robs the line of at least some, and possibly of all, of its power. Rather than reading that last line closely, and thinking "A-ha" or "Oh, wow", a reader will skim it and think "Oh,

yeah" or "Sure"; which is a much worse way to end the poem.

Good points....!!

After I'd posted this, it occurred to me that shortly before that I'd blogged Will's poem "God Smiles", which does exactly that. Yet it didn't bother me. Thinking about that, I remembered that I'd once used the title of a poem ("Afterglow") as the last

*word* in it, and that worked very well. So I think the phenomenon of the last line falling flat is correlated with how long that line is; the longer it is, the longer it takes to read, and the more likely a reader is to stop reading in the middle of it (
since he's already read it).

I should add that I got the idea of writing the above from another poem of Will's, that's in his SP as "Tired of Waiting," but which he'd recently blogged with the last line, "Spring is trapped in the crystal," as the title - which I didn't like at all.

Rather than argue with him about it, I decided to write a general essay on the subject.

Yes, I'll add another influence on my use of titles, working with Henry Conley as the lyricist in a songwriting team.

Way back in 2004 or so we butted heads over a title.

Henry argued that the title should be recognizable on a juke box.

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On Friday, August 27, 2021 at 12:19:13 PM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

On Monday, August 23, 2021 at 5:13:51 PM UTC-4, tst...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 4:22:26 AM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

A mistake that poets often make is to use the last line of a poem as its title. (I just read another of those tonight; I won't name it, because it doesn't matter whose poem it was.)

It's easy enough to make that mistake. A poet ends a poem with a very powerful line. Because it's the best line in the poem, he decides to use it as the title, on the idea that the most powerful line will attract the most readers.

Why is it a mistake? Because a line is more powerful if one is reading or hearing it for the first time, and less powerful if one has read or heard it before. Every time a line is reused, it loses power;.if a reader already knows that line, he does

not have to concentrate on it but can simply skim through it. (A skilled poet learns to work around that, in poems where fixed lines are obligatory such as the triolet or villanelle), by subtly changing the lines themselves, or using the lines
surrounding them to change the meaning of otherwise identical lines.)

So: the poet has ended his poem with a powerful line. But he then robs the line of at least some, and possibly of all, of its power. Rather than reading that last line closely, and thinking "A-ha" or "Oh, wow", a reader will skim it and think "Oh,

yeah" or "Sure"; which is a much worse way to end the poem.

Good points....!!

After I'd posted this, it occurred to me that shortly before that I'd blogged Will's poem "God Smiles", which does exactly that. Yet it didn't bother me. Thinking about that, I remembered that I'd once used the title of a poem ("Afterglow") as the last

*word* in it, and that worked very well. So I think the phenomenon of the last line falling flat is correlated with how long that line is; the longer it is, the longer it takes to read, and the more likely a reader is to stop reading in the middle of it (
since he's already read it).

I should add that I got the idea of writing the above from another poem of Will's, that's in his SP as "Tired of Waiting," but which he'd recently blogged with the last line, "Spring is trapped in the crystal," as the title - which I didn't like at all.

Rather than argue with him about it, I decided to write a general essay on the subject.

Cool, cool... cross posting this to the main group....

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