On Dickinson's "788"

              Dickinson is one of my favorite poets not only because of the legacy she left behind, but also, because her poetry is extremely difficult to interpret. Having read roughly a hundred of her poems, I can say with sincerity that Dickinson has produced many beautifully, comprehensible classics and other incomprehensible, irritating poems. Many of her pieces pertain to nature, society, and human interaction while other pieces need to be heavily inspected in order to decipher meaning. Similarly, some of her poems are quite literal whereas others are just the opposite. Having never previously read Dickinson’s poem 788, I was pleasantly surprised by this piece. This is a literal poem about how capitalism influences the spread of literature in the United States during Dickinson's life.

            Dickinson opens her poem by stating, “Publication – is the Auction/ Of the Mind of Man” (1692, 1-2). This is a powerful assertion to start a poem with and it becomes clear from the beginning of this piece that Dickinson feels negatively toward the publication industry. It is a common misconception that Dickinson did not have much published poetry throughout her life. Though much of her poetry was published after her death, many of her poems were published during her lifetime. Nevertheless, this thought-process likely reflects how Dickinson feels guilt that she is receiving money for her publications or how she would like to keep her poetry to herself. She continues her first stanza in saying that, “Poverty- be justifying / For so foul a thing” (3-4). Evidently, given the rest of the piece in conjunction with the first stanza, Dickinson feels some negative emotions toward the publishing process. By saying that poverty would be justified over auctioning off poems that someone has devoted so much time to creating, Dickinson displays her displeasure with the system. She feels that there should not be a price places on poetry and that others should be able to read poetry freely. However, she recognizes the capitalistic society she lives in and understands that little can be done to change this process. This piece is somewhat a critique of a societal process that Dickinson clearly disapproves of.