Monday, July 07, 2008

prospective titles for "cake the walk"

Not Wanting To
Not Wanting
For the Cloud
Cake
Beyond the Diamond
Cloud Enough
Who Wouldn’t Want
Forgive the Cold
Ching
I Appreciate That Dark
Appreciate That Dark
Under This
All the Way Up
A Stone Bench Waits for the Cloud
The Park
The Town Park
Near the Duckpond
A Cold Wind
Two For You
The Crowd

*

I don't always have trouble titling a poem. There are occasions the perfect title has seemed to me a line that otherwise didn't fit in the poem. Other times I've used the poem's first line, sometimes going for the repetition, sometimes displacing the first line into the title position so the poem & title start at the same place.

When Gordon Lish expressed interest in poems I sent him (this was 16 ... 17 years ago?) he didn't like the titles I'd given them. I filled up sheets of paper brainstorming new titles and finally found ones that were acceptable to him (and to me). In giving "cake the walk" a title I decided that rather than just going with the first thought that seemed OK I would brainstorm at least 20 different titles.

Some of the above I don't like at all. Others seem almost maybe. None jumps out as just right. Not right now anyway.

Any preferences out there?

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