untitled

The last thing that might come to a piece of writing is its title, unless the title is all there is of the writing or unless a piece of writing emerges perforce from its title to take on a life of its own. A title can of course overwhelm the thing it's titling, drag down the thing it was meant to lift, meant to elegantly elucidate. If the title is the thing, then the thing, such as a poem or short story, might devolve into only its title so that the title becomes the poem and is not a poem at all but a title in place of a poem. There are poets who only write titles, as there are also poets who only write short poems; in each case, once they have started writing titles for poems or only short poems, it seems they can't stop themselves. Whatever the case, a title must be wrested from a piece of writing as a fighter might wrest a crown from a world champion, or come, as keats said the poem must come to the poet, as naturally as the leaves to the tree. After the great storm of the real writing, which bears no scars of its struggle but which has been labored on nonetheless, the title should be the thing that washes up on shore as a perfectly placed, organically arrived at curiosity.