A New Name
On titles, transformations, and Bright Shards’s new identity
Any of you who’ve had a hand in naming something – a book, a story, a pet or (especially) a human being, you understand the significance of a name. Names have weight, and, if you take the responsibility seriously, bestowing them can feel like a sacred act.
I know writers who say they hate titling their work, or that they’re terrible at it, and they often seek feedback from others on what to call their stories, poems, or books. I actually love titles, though I admit they can be tricky. Often, a title will come to me first before the poem does; it’s the seed from which the poem grows. Similarly, my book titles have been talismans I’ve carried with me through much of the process of writing the book itself, representing to me the soul of the project I’m pursuing and keeping me on track. There are lots of different kinds of titles, but often, when they’re working, I think of them as existing somewhere between a label and a prayer. They capture something of the essence of the thing, sometimes in ways I can’t articulate.
But the soul of a thing can also shift, subtly, revealing new aspects of itself or refining itself as through fire. In these cases, sometimes a new name must also be born.
This happened to me with two of my four books: the title that carried me through the composition process was no longer quite right by the end. These books needed new, truer faces with which to greet the world. For example, my first poetry collection, Best Bones, which was published in 2014, had two long-term titles before it was accepted for publication. The first iteration of the project was my MFA Thesis, which was called The Only House in the Neighborhood after one of the poems in the collection about an off-kilter dollhouse, and I carried that title with me after graduation as I added to and honed the poems therein. The following year, I had the great fortune of spending seven months as a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown where I was able to be a full-time poet (a vocation which, it turns out, includes a lot of long walks and watching the full Criterion Collection film catalog from the local library). Given the history and setting of the place I was in, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the title of my collection-in-progress became Blue Whale. In my thinking, the “house” from the original title was now the whale itself – the final line of the titular poem being “O to be a mansion steering itself.” But by the time the book was accepted for publication a few years later, I came to feel that Blue Whale, which I loved, was too soft a title for the book I’d written – a book of beauty and tenderness and domesticity, but also of power dynamics, loss, and anger. It had softness and curve, but also bony elbows that might jab you now and again. Or, like a sister, it might “accidentally” pull your hair. I settled on Best Bones, letting the skeleton become the frame for this book of wobbly structures – bodies, families, homes.
This all brings me to the re-christening at hand, which you’ve gathered by now is a change of this newsletter’s title from “Bright Shards” to “Wilderment.” Let me tell you briefly why.
As you probably know if you’re reading this, I’m still quite new to writing on Substack. I decided to start somewhat impulsively in December, and am surprised by how much I’ve been enjoying this new space to hold the ideas, projects, and conversations that feel significant to me in these times. There’s so much wonderful, thoughtful content on this platform, I feel drawn to deepen my connections here and engage in more heartfelt, enlivening conversations. I hope you’ll continue to follow me here, and speak back to me too. What interests you? What questions are you holding in your hearts?
As this newsletter has come into being over these past few weeks, I’ve started to get a clearer sense of what this space is. The title “Bright Shards” – which is from a poem I wrote last year – came to me as a title for this publication with the image of assembling something beautiful from the fragments of what’s been broken. It speaks to me of transformation, creativity, and repair. But I worry that it’s a little abstract for people who don’t already know what I’m up to, and the image of shards is also very spiky – too many elbows, perhaps, and not enough curve.
“Wilderment” is a name I’ve been carrying in my heart for a few months. I was originally holding it for another collaboration that didn’t (yet) come to pass, and I realized that it was the rightful face of this place. The made-up word, a play on the ideas of both “bewilderment” and “becoming wild,” conveys a sense of process, that our wilderment is something ongoing as these times we’re living in continue to bewilder us, and to invite us into deeper contact with our own wildness in the wild, living world.
What you can expect in this place
Missives from The School for Living Futures, an interdisciplinary, experimental organization dedicated to creating new knowledge and possibility for our climate-changed future
Essays on poetry and literature that converse with the living world
Thoughts about my own writing and teaching process and projects
Discussions about how to live, write, and make art in these times
Thank you for reading this far, for sharing this newsletter with friends who may be experiencing their own wilderment and want a friendly voice with them in the forest, and for considering becoming a paid subscriber. Your support of all kinds helps me continue to do the work I do.
In wilderment,
Sarah Rose
Bony elbows, indeed... wouldn't expect anything less, now and again. We all need it xo