'Lives Like Loaded Guns'

Now that's a title.

It has alliteration, simile and ends with one heck of a powerful word. No wonder I couldn't help but pick up this book -- Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds -- by Lyndall Gordon from the public library's new book shelf and begin reading right way.

Its title, by the way, is derived from Dickinson poem with a first line that reads:

My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun

In the book, as well as an interview with NPR's "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross, Gordon speculated that Emily Dickinson's self-imposed seclusion was because of epilepsy. Fearing the shame of a public seizure was enough to keep Emily in the house, she figured.

All told, while holed up in the house, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) wrote over 1,700 poems including this one, one of only seven of her poems that are in the public domain:

Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile -- the Winds --
To a Heart in port --
Done with the Compass --
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden --
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor -- Tonight --
In Thee!

No one can prove one way or another the reason for Dickinson's reclusiveness for which several reasons have been posited over the years, including agoraphobia, migraines and the devastation of lost love. Regardless of why Emily acquired her odd habits, I'm finding this book a bit too academic to make it a thoroughly engaging read which means I skim sometimes, something I don't really like to do.

The most interesting aspect of this book, honestly, is the telling of the extra-marital affair between Emily's brother, Austin, and Mabel Loomis Todd and its affect on Dickinson's post-mortem publishing history. Todd was clearly an ambitious woman. She took control of Emily's poems after Dickinson died even though the two had never met face-to-face, and even though Austin's wife, Susan, was clearly Emily's preferred first reader. On the other hand, Susan seems to have lacked the drive to get Emily's words into print that Todd possessed.

All that aside, one thing about Dickinson's poetry that has caught my attention is the fact that she didn't give her poems titles. I feel art, whether it be visual, literary or performance, should be named. Dickinson is long gone and it's unclear whether she wanted her poetry published, so she's off the hook. I think those of us who seek publication should give our work something to hang on, an initial clue or entry point for the reader. Furthermore, I think it's a lazy cop-out and oxymoronic to title something "Untitled."

But write anything for a while, and you might discover that titles are not always easy. I'm still struggling with the title for what my friends and I refer to as "the sink poem." For now, it's called "Interlude," but I keep hoping I can come up with something better. The poem I wrote that is printed in my introductory blog post was initially called "Open Air" until I decided "A Poem's Bio" better described what I was after.

So far, not one of the poetry instruction manuals I've read addresses how to title a poem. The latest on my reading list was Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook. While this book does have a lot of good technical information, I thought it as dry and uninspiring as its name. Oliver warns of that in her introduction which states, "This book is about the things that can be learned. It is about matters of craft, primarily. It is about the part of the poem that is the written document, as opposed to a mystical document, which of course the poem is also."

I decided to ask some fellow poet friends of mine where they go to get their titles. I know I can always count on Peter Quinn, our poetry-in-progress workshop facilitator at The Writers' Workshoppe, for a thoughtful answer, and he didn't disappoint me.

Peter said, "Titles come in many permutations. First is the permutation. You start with a title, write until the title becomes true or proves it was really just a prompt demanding a new title.

"Second, there's the 'ah ha!' title. The poem is finished (as much as any poem can be) [with] the intent, the feeling, the genesis firmly imbedded in the work, and there it sits, at the very end of the process, grinning ear-to-ear and saying 'took you long enough.'

"Third, titles are inculcated into the work itself: a line, a phrase, a consistent theme that just won't stop insisting itself into the piece. Finally, at last, you acknowledge it's right to step out front and introduce the whole thing.

"Fourth is the immaculate title coming from where it needed to, informing you of it's existance, it's birthright as the true title. You are so excited you give it a special reverance because you want many more of them to come your way. Dare I say you worship the immaculate title?"

Immaculate? I can barely make it through the morning without spilling coffee on my clothes. As a beginner poet, I'll be happy enough with something that makes sense and is...uh, you know...poetic.

But I get what Peter means. I think it's the same thing that Jordan Hartt, director of Centrum's Port Townsend Writers' Conference, meant when he said, “The piece should tell you what it wants the title to be, and if it doesn’t, you just have to wait.”

I find, more often than not, that's a large part of writing poetry, this waiting.

Kathie Meyer, the Infant Poet