Tag: Writing Advice

Your First Full-Length Poetry Collection: One Poet’s Experience

Published on by Beatriz F.1 Comment

So… you’ve written several chapbooks and now your fellow poets are urging you to publish a full-length poetry book.  The first question that may come to mind is what’s the difference between a chapbook and a full-length collection?  Chapbooks are generally anywhere from 15-40 pages and are more focused–often devoted to a single theme, idea, or form.  Full length books tend to be longer, about 60-100 pages and cover a broader range of themes, representing a more expansive view of the poet’s work. 

Gathering enough poems for a full-length collection and then organizing them can be a daunting experience. After all, these are most likely poems you have published over the course of many years, perhaps decades.  Keep in mind that some of the poems can or most likely will be previously published, but a subsection of the content can also introduce new material. 

In my case, I had previously published three poetry chapbooks—each one very different from the previous one.  My first chapbook consisted mainly of persona poems written in the voice of historical, legendary and fictional female characters.  Over time, I had written more persona poems, including some of my personal favorites, as my writing expertise grew, and I shaped these into another chapbook which I submitted to contests.  This chapbook garnered much positive feedback and praise from editors and came close to winning several contests, named a finalist, honorable mention, runner-up, but never quite reaching the top spot. 

When I first conceived of creating a full-length collection, I naturally wanted to use many of the poems from this never-published chapbook, but I also wanted my new collection to include persona poems written in male voices, some written in response to the female-voiced persona poems, as well as many other types of poems.  I began to build the new book on the spine of the chapbook, which was divided into three sections united by a long narrative poem that served as the overarching thematic touchstone:   The Story of the Stones.” 

ORGANIZING YOUR POEMS

You can choose many ways to organize your poems:  theme, form or length, date written or covered, place, imagery, biographical significance or association.

I organized the sections roughly by the time period covered in the poem, be it fictional or historical, and gathered poems that addressed more modern times into the third section.  That way the tone and vocabulary of the poems wouldn’t create too stark a contrast with each other.  I also placed the pairs of response poems next to each other: Heloise/Abelard, Guinevere/Launcelot, Maid Marian/Robin, Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler–some of which were published together for the first time.

The contents fell almost naturally into three roughly equal sections of 14-18 poems, each covering about 20 pages due to the varying length of the poems.  The order within each section was not strictly in chronological order.  In some cases, imagery from one poem links it to the next in a fluid fashion, but I did not agonize over the order of the poems too much. 

The reason for this is that I personally do not read poems in a collection in sequential order.  My natural instinct when I pick up a poetry book (or any book, really) is to open it a random page and begin reading.  If I am intrigued by what I read, then I continue, or backtrack, or jump ahead a few pages/chapters, sometimes to the ending. I very rarely read a book from beginning to end without skipping around.  The less I know exactly what is going on in the story, the more fun I find the reading process.

I know this approach may be anathema to some readers, but I think poetry books lend themselves to this random sampling method much better than novels, for example, and that may be why I’m a poet and not a novelist! 

TITLING YOUR FULL-LENGTH COLLECTION

Many poets use the title of one of the individual poems in the collection as the title of the whole because that poem is an important one for them personally or they use a line from one of the key poems in the collection.  In my case, I gathered the poems first and examined them as a group.  I knew I wanted to use” The Story of the Stones” (based on a visit to Stonehenge) as the central poem, but not as the title.  When I chanced upon the version of “Evening” by Rainer Maria Rilke (one of my favorite poets) translated by Stephen Mitchell, which ends “now bounded, now immeasurable/ it is alternately stone in you and star” I knew I had identified two key images that my poems returned to again and again and which for me defined the dichotomy of the human condition the poems celebrated.

The subtitle “Poems in Voices Across Time” was inevitable as I wanted to emphasize that most of these poems were in voices not my own and not necessarily from my time period.  I’ve always loved time travel as a fictional device and through my poems I travel from antiquity to the modern era. 

PLEASE YOUR FIRST READER:  YOURSELF

While there should be some rhyme and reason to the ordering of your book, it doesn’t necessarily have to please the masses.  You are a poet and a poetry reader—consult yourself first.  (Unless you are a perfectionist, in which case you may delay publication forever!) Do you like poetry collections organized a certain way?  Do you feel confused if the poems seem randomly grouped?  Do you feel there must be a central theme running throughout?  Do you enjoy reading poems arranged by alternating lengths? 

Above all, you should please yourself first when putting together your book.  There is no one “right” way and there are no poetry gods to be appeased.  Stretch that poetic license as far as you feel is desirable and necessary!

The best result is not if your book wins prizes or garners praise from others (although that is nice when it happens!), the most important thing is that you are proud of the resulting work and feel that it truly reflects your personal creative style.

One of my favorite poems from this new collection is somewhat appropriate to the month of October, as it combines gothic elements and hints of Frankenstein and applies them to Wuthering Heights. 

Emily Brontë Addresses Her Creation

            “But Fancy still will sometimes deem 
              Her fond creation true.”  ~ A Day Dream

I named you after the things I loved–
the heath I walked on every good day of my life,
the stone cliffs I climbed as a girl,

for yours was the companion spirit I found there,
your face the vision that hounded me,
when clouds churned across those wind-worn heights.

All that one soul calls forth in another,
I poured into you, my willing vessel
—and you in return guided my hand

more surely than any god could,
you who dared navigate the seas of Gondal
in my childhood, led armies across continents—

my melancholy gypsy boy, man of mystery,
you were both commander and commandment.
At times you wore my brother Branwell’s face—

not the playmate I lost to London Town,
but he who returned home in his place.
When I stood at the chasm of his grave

my mind full of fears I’d soon share
the dark refuge he found there,
I thought back to the first time

I penned your name—Heathcliff—
and wondered whether I did right
to birth what some would later claim

was a monster in the heather,
weave a cradle of bracken fronds
and release you on the fragile river of men—

where your lips declared desires
I dare not speak of, and your black heart
would out-beat mine.

Happy Halloween, readers!

Beatriz F. Fernandez is a poet and short fiction writer. Join me for my November 1st reading (along with Miguel Mitchell) as part of the Speculative Sunday Reading series!  Presented and moderated by Akua Lezlie Hope.
Readings are live on Zoom and tickets are free via the Eventbrite link.

Thank you for reading and please follow us here and on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/OLDSCRATCHPRESS/

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What’s in a Title? Naming Your Poems Like It Matters

Published on by Beatriz F.Leave a comment

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

              ~ Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, spoken by Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

Today I am writing about a subject dear to my heart—choosing titles for poems.

The opportunity to name something you created should not be wasted.  You’d think people would give this more attention than they actually do.

Back in the 80s, there was a best-selling book called The Name Game and its main premise was that your name was your destiny.  If you wanted your child to be popular, excel in school and marry well, you had to be very careful what you named that little baby in the bassinet.

It would seem to follow that naming your poem merits some consideration as well!

To be clear, I’m no expert and I’m not denigrating any method you may be in the habit of using to choose your titles (or name your children!). But I have a keen interest in this subject and it seems to be a somewhat neglected area of discussion in poetry.

Just to see if maybe something on this subject was buried in books about writing poetry, I checked out a few classic poetry craft books: Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual and Robert Pinsky’s Singing School. Kooser devotes a few pages to the subject.  Pinsky mentions nothing about titles but does provide lots of examples of classic poem titles to peruse.

I then checked in the library catalog of a library of 2 million+ volumes, and only ONE book comes up under the LC classification subject heading: Titles of poems, it is a book called The Title to the Poem by Anne Ferry.  She explores the subject in depth, asking questions like “Who gives the title? Who has the title? Who “says” the poem? Who “hears” the poem? What genre does the poem belong to? What is the poem “about”?” and considers the deeper aspects of titling poems: “There are complex relationships between what titles purport to tell and what they actually tell, and this is true not only of titles so worded that they demand interpretation, but also of those that appear straightforward.”

A title can anchor a poem in space and time, giving the reader some necessary context with which to begin reading and enjoying it.  For example, a recent poem I wrote I entitled:

“Native, Antilles High School, Ft. Buchanan, Puerto Rico”

I could have just named it “Native” but the place and the time were very relevant to understanding the background of this poem, so the title’s subtitle in this case was very important.


Similarly, a poem entitled “An Evening Encounter at the Arecibo Observatory” gives the reader a lot of information, the time, the place, and the sense that this encounter is not going to be an ordinary one, given the nature of the place!


A title can lend specificity and a sense of fun at the same time:
For example, “At the Mayan Monkey Mijas Chocolate Factory” (and yes, this place really exists!)


First of all, how can you visit a place called the Mayan Monkey Mijas Chocolate Factory and NOT write a poem about it and use that name in the title??  However, I later thought I really should have called it “Touring the Mayan Monkey Mijas Chocolate Factory” and that would have conveyed even more relevant information because I was a tourist, not someone who worked there or a local who regularly visited, for example.
This title conveys a specific place (Mijas, Spain), history and culture (Mayan), fun (monkeys!) and sensory detail (the aroma of chocolate) and opens all sorts of questions in the reader’s mind, such as:  What does a chocolate factory in Mijas have to do with Mayan monkeys?
 

Bridget Kriner’s article: Making It Work: Five Jobs for Poem Titles — The Poetry Lab helps you think about how to title your poem by thinking of what you want that title to bring to the poem.

“…titles are hard to get just right and do really important work–namely, a great title shows the reader how to read a poem.

A poem’s title is where the reader is introduced to a poet, an invitation from the poet into the depths of a poem’s magic. This is, essentially, the main job description of a title: to welcome its readers at the doorway of the poem and to draw them inside. However, the specific function titles perform can vary.”

In The Power of Titles: Strategies for Choosing the Right Title for Your Stories & Poetry, Emily Harstone makes a powerful argument against giving poems what she calls “placeholder” titles.

“As a poet, I haven’t always put as much emphasis on titles, but working
as a reader and then an editor for a literary journal really changed that
for me. When I was in that role I had to read about a thousand poems
over the period of two months. This is not an uncommon experience
for editors or readers.
I had to pick around ten poems out of all these poems to share with
others. But after reading so many they all started to merge together in
my mind. It didn’t help that a number of them had the same title.
Sometimes I’d try and remember a poem I liked, but then ended up not
finding it because while I remembered part of the poem I didn’t
remember the title.”

This problem would be exacerbated during the judging of a poetry contest, for example, and could keep your poem from winning an award! Imagine a judge reading dozens of poems called “A Dream” for example and trying to remember which one they liked best!

I think the approach of giving memorable titles to poems helped me when, after winning the 2nd annual Writer’s Digest poetry award with “Respiratory Tech at the Vietnam Memorial, 1989,” (which conveyed the speaker, place and time) I followed it up several years later with “The Menopausal Mermaid Takes Medical Advice” which came in at #36, I think. If you keep in mind that the first contest had ~4200 entries, and was only in its 2nd year, so the entries probably ballooned afterwards to even higher numbers, the importance of a memorable title becomes all the more obvious.

I think the saddest thing I see is “Untitled” as a title. I’m sure there are many brilliant poems by that title (though I can’t think of any off hand), and of course many poets just use the first line of their poem as a title, as per Emily Dickinson (but then again, most of her poems were not meant for publication.) But I feel like not giving your poem a title is a lost opportunity to engage with your reader on a different level.

Rodney Wood gives several techniques to find the right title for your poem: Why poem titles matter more than you might think | Write Out Loud

He does warn that any technique used too often can quickly become monotonous, though.

His final advice should resonate with any poet: “A title doesn’t have to be clever, poetic, or punchy — but it should be deliberate. It’s the invitation, the signpost, the spell. It’s the first poem the reader reads, even before the first line. So give your poems the names they deserve.”

Thank you for reading and please follow us here and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/OLDSCRATCHPRESS/

Beatriz F. Fernandez is a Miami area poet and University Reference librarian. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which is Simultaneous States (2025) by Bainbridge Island Press. In 2025, she became a member of the Old Scratch Press short form and poetry writing collective.

Her upcoming poetry book, Stone & Star: Poems in Voices Across Time will be published this fall by Old Scratch Press.

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