Let’s start with the title: on/me. Every poem in the collection has two titles: a main title that suggests a general category (On Grief, On Love, On Identity, On Mental Health) and a subtitle with a more precise title in italics ( klo-NAY-zeh-pam, Ancestral Power, Love Letter 1). So, for example, “On Secrets / Things I Love About Myself.” Francine Cunningham explains her naming and ordering technique in an interview: I just really wanted to create this guide to some of the parts of myself that I felt like I needed to share. The poems weren’t grouped by theme to begin with, they came out all over the place and were sitting as single files. When the time came for assembly, I read them and tried to define in one word what they were about, which was when they got their “On” designation. I knew right from the beginning that the main thread of the book was going to be my identity, so the “On Identity” poems acted as the spine. All the designations have their own narrative arc when read in their own order, though, so if you were to read the “On Grief” poems, for instance, there is a story inside of that of my own healing.