As some of you may know, I'm working on a second collection of my poetry. (And recruiting beta readers in another thread.) But I've run up against a problem I have to solve before I can do much more: I need a title for the collection.

When I wanted to decide on a unifying theme for the collection, to guide its organization, I managed to divide the poems I was choosing into three groups, that I called (and have decided to use as section titles unless I have better ideas) "Metaphors" (poems about images, metaphors, and other topics that don't fit into the other two sections), "Memory and Dreams," and "Higher Things" (poems about spiritual things or addressed to God). But I couldn't think of a title for the collection as a whole.

It has recently occurred to me that I could use the title of one of my poems, possibly with the addition of something like "and Other Poems." The poem-title that seems best suited to this is "Dream Treader." But I'm not sure even that will really give the right impression.

Does anyone have any thoughts on my conundrum? Do you think "Dream Treader" will work, and if so should I use it by itself or as "Dream Treader and Other Poems"?

I like Dream Treader, and Other Poems, but it sounds very mystical and fantasy-like. I would expect very ethereal, visual poems with that title.

I actually like "Higher Things" as a title--or something conveying a similar sense.

Dream Treader is pretty though my mind misreads that as Dawn Treader at first. I like Higher Things too. It makes me expect thoughtful, introspective poems.

(But I'm really not a poetry reader so...)

Which most of my poems aren't. OTOH, the cover might help with that impression.


The problem is that it'd be a misleading title for the first half or so of the collection.


That particular poem (which you could read on my blog if you like) draws most of its imagery from the end of Dawn Treader, and was inspired by a Dawn Treader filk.

So quite apropos then.
I read the poem and see what you mean - I'd get the correlation even if I hadn't heard it was inspired by the book!

If most of the poems aren't ethereal, I would probably strive for a title that's more intellectual, more thoughtfully sober.

I don't know if I'd recognize an "ethereal" poem if I wrote one. And so many of my poems are "overflow of the heart" pieces---responses to overwhelming beauty in nature, or outpourings of emotion---just informed and shaped by a far more literate upbringing than most self-described poets of my generation seem to have had. But "intellectual" and "thoughtfully sober" are indeed a reasonable summary of my goal---but, like so many problems in mathematics, it's far easier to tell whether a title is suitable than to come up with one.

OTOH, an idea just struck me, and then fractured into a couple of facets. How about something like "Metaphors and Prayers" or "Dreams and Prayers"?

I like "Dreams and Prayers," but you might see if you can add adjectives to that for flavor, or add a subtitle.

Indeed. That title could also work for a memoir, a work of nonfiction, or a collection of short stories, among other possibilities, so a subtitle seems called for. Unfortunately, the best I can think of at the moment is something like "Poems: 2004-2017" (the first date being my best guess as to when I wrote "Song for O'Carolan," the oldest poem in the collection), but I don't really like that idea.

I've now thought of a suitable subtitle. So unless I think of a still better idea, the collection will be titled Dreams and Prayers: Verses from a Wandering Mind.

Since nobody has spoken up with any better ideas, and Dreams and Prayers has so far stuck, I'm archiving this.