Emily Dickinson’s “Publication – is the Auction”
Emily Dickinson’s “Publication – is the Auction” remains one of the poet’s starkest statements on the value of authenticity in creative effort—in her case the writing of poetry.
Introduction and Text of Emily Dickinson’s “Publication – is the Auction”
In her poem “Publication – is the Auction,” Emily Dickinson has created a speaker who is musing on the issue of allowing one’s inner thoughts to be made public through publication in media, including newspapers, magazines, or books.
Ultimately, she is saying that remaining true to one’s values and beliefs is more important than writing to sell to a wide audience. Dickinson’s spirituality, contingent upon mysticism, gave her the strong will to continue exploring the world for truth and then telling it without reservation.
Her speaker avers that publication of literary works can even become a threat to one’s inner life, as achievement is so often shunted aside solely for the purpose of increasing sales. Her speaker engages metaphors and images in areas of commerce and religion in order to approach a notion of purity.
Her speaker feels that reverence for one’s mental faculties will naturally garner restraint that will ethically prevent rash decisions to expose one’s inner talent to a world interested primarily in financial achievement over literary accomplishments.
Publication – is the Auction
Publication – is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man –
Poverty – be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly – but We – would rather
From Our Garret go
White – unto the White Creator –
Than invest – Our Snow –
Thought belong to Him who gave it –
Then – to Him Who bear
Its Corporeal illustration – Sell
The Royal Air –
In the Parcel – Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace –
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price –
Commentary on “Publication – is the Auction”
Emily Dickinson published very few poems during her lifetime. Although she seemed to seek publication as she first conversed with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, her ultimate goal was to produce a body of work the meant something for her soul. She seemed to learn very quickly and early that publication had its pitfalls, and it seems that she struggled to avoid them.
Stanza 1: “Publication – is the Auction”
Publication – is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man –
Poverty – be justifying
For so foul a thing
The speaker opens with a candid statement that publishing is tantamount to selling one’s soul. Although she buffers the claim by inserting “Mind” instead of soul, the ultimate meaning of inner awareness becomes more comparable to soul-awareness than mere mental capacity and observance.
The speaker avers that selling one’s words is equal to selling one’s own consciousness, not merely the paper, ink, and stream of words across a page. Such an insistence makes it abundantly clear that such a sale cannot be justified. In fact, remaining in “Poverty” is better than engaging in “so foul a thing” as selling one’s inner being.
The speaker then is implying that the creative writer’s mind becomes a mere object that is diminished by such a sordid undertaking. The economy with which the speaker has presented such a sapient idea demonstrates the strength her metaphor is exerting.
One can imagine an auctioneer rattling off numbers above the head of man, who is selling his head’s contents to the highest bidder. Such a scenario mocks the very notion of trying to sell one’s wares that have come into being through deep thought about spiritually vital things.
One might question such a strong stance against publication for money, but it is important to keep in mind that the speaker is no doubt referring to the creation and sale of poetry. The genesis of poetry remains a very different one from writing expository and informative essays and/or news articles.
Even the writing of fiction such as plays, short stories, or novels carries a different moral impact. If the speaker were focusing on those genres, the poem would have undoubtedly taken a very different approach.
Stanza 2: “Possibly – but We – would rather”
Possibly – but We – would rather
From Our Garret go
White – unto the White Creator –
Than invest – Our Snow –
In the second stanza, the speaker switches from the general to the personal. Employing the editorial “We,” she asserts that despite the possibly of living in poverty, first principles and ethics remain inviolable.
Thus, if the poet must leave her “Garret”—symbol for poverty—she need not go rushing toward the marketplace. Instead, she can and must associate herself with purity: she employs “White” as a symbol of that purity. Thus, rather than “invest” her “Snow”—another symbol of purity as well as a metaphor for her creative writing pieces—she will go toward the “White Creator”—the Ultimate symbol of purity.
Investing one’s “Snow” signals turning one’s purity (works of art) into money, and such an exchange would cause those works and the mind that created them to become contaminated. Imagine handling a ball of snow—it does not remain snow but instead it melts into a pool of water.
Although water is a useful commodity, after melting from snow the original element has lost its original defining qualities. A work of art/poem may become further damaged even by the process of being readied for publication: how often have we heard writers lament that their original words were changed by an editor?
The speaker then is asserting that she prefers total obscurity to the compromise demanded by attempts at publication. And she is not asserting this stance out fear but instead out of fidelity to her ethical position regarding her sacred principles and values.
She is implying rather strongly that remaining in poverty is the better way to preserve her inner dedication to truth; that way she need never make excuses for losing spiritual purity.
Stanza 3: “Thought belong to Him who gave it”
Thought belong to Him who gave it –
Then – to Him Who bear
Its Corporeal illustration – Sell
The Royal Air –
The speaker now offers her most profound reason for eschewing publication: because all thought belongs to the Ultimate Reality or God. God owns all thought just as He owns all of the air we breathe. Selling thought then becomes tantamount to selling air—a truly absurd notion, easily assimilated and understood.
The writer/artist becomes an instrument of the Divine, a steward not a proprietor. Ownership is not conferred by merely having taken a thought and shaped it into a poem; the Divine Poet, who awarded the poem to the poet, still owns the work.
Stanza 4: “In the Parcel – Be the Merchant”
In the Parcel – Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace –
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price –
In the final stanza, the speaker commands her audience of artists—and likely most important herself as a poet—to accept the package (the art work/poem but think of it as coming from its Divine Source. By thinking thusly, the poet/artist can happily continue to create—as the Great Creator does—but without the stain conferred by the fickle marketplace.
The artist must remain true to her own inner values, and the most natural and divine way to do that is to realize their Source—create for the original Creator alone; the art that is thus produced will reflect only love, beauty, and truth. These qualities are the only ones with which the true artist can contend, for they remain free from taint, stain, and corruption that surge by trying to please multifaceted humankind.
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