Ways to End a Poem #1: Use an Image

This article is for: Everyone!

We all know that the ending of a poem is terrifically important.

More than any other part, the ending is what the reader takes away with them.

If it’s a good ending, they’ll be turning it over in their mind for days or weeks, wondering at how you summed up the whole poem, or broadened it out, or created an astounding surprise, in just a few words or lines.

A weak ending, on the other hand, can deflate the strongest poem, leaving the reader with disappointment as their abiding memory.

So we all need to write good endings—but how?!

That’s a good question! I think effective endings are one of the hardest things to learn in poetry.

But this process does get easier when you know a few different strategies.

This article discusses a very common and effective ending technique: finishing with an image.

Why end a poem with an image?

Images as endings have two big things going for them:

They create powerful sensory and emotional pictures in readers’ minds, which have lasting impact; and
They open out into multiple meanings, which makes an ending that is resonant and complex.

To see how this works, let’s look at the ending of a short poem by Ada Limón, from her excellent book Bright Dead Things.

This isn’t a stand-out poem in the book, but that’s kind of why I’ve chosen it: to show you how a final image can lift up even a relatively minor poem.

The poem, called “Midnight, Talking About Our Exes,” depicts a scene where two friends watch “Two owls… dive into a nothingness.” After seeing the owls, the speaker of the poem then says “Let’s be owls tonight,” and imagines what life as an owl would be like, before ending the poem by saying she will come to her friend as an owl:

the one warm beast still coming to you in the dark,
despite all those old, cold, claustrophobic stars.

Look first at the sensory and emotional picture that the final image makes.

There is the speaker-as-owl, who is “warm” and “coming to you”: if that doesn’t create a striking picture of something soft, beautiful, and silent flying swiftly closer, I don’t know what would. There is also “the dark,” which contains “old, cold, claustrophobic stars”: this paints the distant night that wraps around the speaker-as-owl, and brings her into sharper focus as the thing that is near, and getting nearer. And of course, these images lead to moods and feelings: the speaker-as-owl feels wanted and welcome, especially when she’s contrasted against the unfriendly stars.

So the scene created by this ending in the reader’s mind definitely is clear, vivid, and emotional, and as such has the potential to stay with them for some time.

But this ending also suggests multiple meanings, that give richness to the implied characters and relationship.

For example, the speaker-as-owl is “the one warm beast still coming to you,” which seems to imply loneliness and loss in the friend, and possibly in the speaker too (and linking with the “Exes” in the title?). This isolation is initially reinforced by the “cold” stars, but when we hear that the stars are also “claustrophobic,” an opposite meaning enters: perhaps the closeness that seemed to be lacking isn’t actually wanted, since the speaker and her friend don’t want to be enclosed by the stars? Then we might also remember that owls are birds of prey—so is there something threatening, as well as comforting, in the approach of the speaker-as-owl?

In short, is the ending of the poem showing us both the desirability of intimacy, and at the same time why it is dangerous and not wanted?

None of these questions are fully answerable, but that’s kind of the point:

Because the ending is an image, we’re free to explore its meanings in our own ways, and get ourselves more thoroughly involved in the poem in the process!

So I hope you can see that:

Ending with an image, a described scene, has allowed Limón to make a complex and evocative ending that has the potential to stay with us and create fascinating meanings.

Other ways images work as endings

Images always create sensory pictures and suggest complex meanings, but depending on how you use them, they can do a couple of other things too.

Images can round off the themes and emotions of your poem

Oftentimes, the ideas and topics you’ve put into a poem can seem just too big or multiple to be easily summed up.

In this situation, how can you end the poem in a way that does justice to all the parts of it?

An image might be just what you need!

Let’s look at another Limón poem, “The Last Move.” This is a much longer poem (two pages) that intersperses aspects of a speaker’s new domestic life in rural Kentucky (think icky bugs and spiders!) with memories of her former life in New York City.

At the end, the speaker introduces a story of a woman drowned in a hotel water tank, so that showers would not work. She imagines a woman drowned that way in her own house—a woman who is like her younger, NYC-based self. Then the poem ends:

Yes, over and over
I’d press her limbs down with a long pole
until she was still.

It’s a powerful image—why would the speaker want to kill this woman off, instead of rescuing her?!—until you realize that this sums up the whole poem: the speaker would like to do away with the previous version of herself, who was “freely single, happily unaccounted for” in NYC, so that it’s easier for her to accept her less exciting, more constrained new life in Kentucky. Also, she feels murderous envy toward any woman who still has that single city life!

And so, this image does a great job of rounding off this long poem, because it condenses the meaning of the whole thing in a way that’s visual, resonant, and open-ended.

Images can create a twist

Another way to end a poem is with a sudden change of direction, or a “turn” as it’s known technically.

And an image can be a powerful way to do this change of direction.

In fact, you’ve already seen this happen, in Limón’s “Midnight” poem about the owls. Remember that final line?

despite all those old, cold, claustrophobic stars.

Before this line, the stars had not been mentioned, and even the night had been only briefly referred to (in the title and in a reference to the sun being down). The rest was all about owls.

So the stars in that final line are a “turn,” and I think a really cool one, because they make the poem’s scope vastly bigger: the owls (and the women) are set suddenly against the huge background of space, and their closeness is seen as all the more important in a cold universe that doesn’t care about people.

I find this makes the poem much, much more satisfying, and makes it resonate long after I finish it.

Summing Up: Things Images Can Do

Putting this all together, here are Reasons To Use Images At The End Of A Poem:

They make a strong, clear sensory picture that activates the reader’s imagination and sticks in the mind
They create subtlety and depth of meaning
They can sum up a poem and round it off in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing…
They can introduce an element of surprise that also is satisfying and makes the poem seem “bigger.”

So, when you’re next stuck for an ending, try using an image, and see what it does.

Better yet, try 5 or 10 different images, and see which one fits best!

You can use the exercise that’s coming up to help you learn this skill as well.

Next Steps:

Find a poem of yours that does not end with an image. If you’ve never been happy with the ending, so much the better!
Take a few minutes to think about and jot down:
—The main message or impression you want to send the reader away with
—The most important theme or topic of the poem
—Any repeated types of images that you’ve used already (for example, maybe you’ve put in two or three images about birds).
Create a list of at least 10 images to consider for the ending.
—For some, use your main theme/topic as inspiration.
If your theme is loss, what might show it? A fawn nosing at its mother killed on a road? An old man looking at the golf clubs he’ll never be well enough to use again?
—For others, create images that connect with images you’ve used previously.
If you’ve used bird images, create some more: an egg falling from a cliffside nest, or a swan alone where there used to be a pair.
—For yet more, consider your main message and let that lead you to images.
If you want to show consolation in loss, then maybe you could use a child given a replacement teddy after a favorite one has been lost.
Wait at least a day, to give yourself some perspective.
Make a shortlist of images to try out at the end of the poem. Create a separate version of the poem for each ending.
Wait again, for up to two weeks.
Re-read all the versions, get some feedback on how each ending works, and see if you have an ending that fits.
If you do—well done! How does it compare with your old ending? Is it stronger?
If not, try again!