Question

When writing an original poem are there any circumstances when you would put quotation marks around the title of your poem?

Answer 1

Yes, if ever you cite that title in another context. You wouldn't put the quotation marks around the title just in front of the poem itself.

Answer 2

My son wrote 10 original poems and the teacher told them to put quotes around the title. My wife and I believe she is incorrect. Is there any specific source I can show them? They say they used the Purdue Owl website as reference. I can not find it. Thanks

Answer 3

Here you can see that if a poem's title is cited in text -- that is, outside of the poem itself, in some other work -- that poem's title needs to be in quotation marks. The same would hold for a short story. A book title, on the other hand, would be placed in italics. The rule is that portions of published works appear in quotation marks. The titles of full works, published separately, appear in italics. (So chapter titles within a book are also cited in quotation marks, for example.)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/04/

But all of this has to do with the citation of titles outside of their own context. If your son's teacher thinks then that the poem itself must carry its title in quotation marks, she is mistaken. This is no more the case than that book titles on book jackets appear in italics, or every chapter within the book appears in quotation marks.

Answer 4

I should just add that for book-length poems published on their own, you would place those titles in italics (just as you would the name of any other book) when citing them in text. This is beside the point for your purposes, but didn't want what I'd said to be misleading. Short poems, poems within a book -- quotation marks. Long poems published as independent works -- italics.

All of this when cited elsewhere, outside of the context of the work itself.

Answer 5

Thank You