How to include an explanation

[Yasaibatake]

I have a poem entitled "Oni" that I would like to send out to some magazines. However, when I gave the original to my poet friends for a critique, no one understood the title. It's fairly important to the poem and adds some great imagery; a Japanese friend of mine who read it agreed, saying that the title greatly influenced the way she read the poem and was one of the main reasons it stayed with her. I've been thinking about just adding a short explanation at the bottom of the poem, but I'm afraid that would look unprofessional. Is it better to just hope people will google it? Or how should I include an explanation?

[Writer???]

I am no professional but, I have seen explanations as you describe in books of published poetry, and, personally, I always appreciate explanations of foreign or difficult words.

[skelly]

For my .02 I say you don't provide the explanation and let your reader's have the joy of discovery. Those who won't pursue it further aren't the people to whom you are speaking anyway.

Also, probably utterly unrelated, Oni was a kick-ass video game.

:)

[L.R. Currell]

I would risk the explanation mainly because it is a foreign word and most people in your target demographic probably wouldn't understand.