Who Bounty—have not known—
The fact of Famine—could not be
Except for Fact of Corn—
Want—is a meagre Art
Acquired by Reverse—
The Poverty that was not Wealth—
Cannot be Indigence.
-Fr 870, J771, 1864
The first stanza is a classic bit of wisdom. We’ve seen Dickinson hammer this point home in poem after poem. (So does Buddha, by the way, and many other helpful guides besides.) Lack and fulfillment are two sides of a coin. You can’t have one without the other. But its the untenable tension between the two drives one, eventually, to a realization of equanimity, toward a position of balance and poise.
In the next stanza the thought continues,
Want—is a meagre Art
Acquired by Reverse—
To exist in state of want, or, unfulfilled desire, is an ideal. It’s an art. But how do we pull off this paradox? How do you remain perpetually in a state of desire without actually having that desire filled. It's a conundrum. It's not an easy art!
“Want,” as it is used here, can mean both desire and lack. When you put the two meanings in the same word and learn to deal, it is then that it becomes “Art.” You are, at once, both full of desire and in acceptance of being without the object of your desire.
Dickinson calls this a meagre Art and at first it seems this means the art of want is lacking in comparison to the art of having, is meagre in comparison. But knowing Dickinson, I think she’s being wry. She’s turning it around to say something like “less is more.” It’s not so much that the art itself is meagre, is a lesser art, but that mastering meagreness, having less, is the art.
Meagre is an interesting word. It can mean both lacking in quantity, as in, you have less, but also lacking in quality, as in, you are less. The poet here is feeling meagre, or lesser, precisely because she once had something so great. Having once had so much more makes no longer having it that much more difficult. This is a theme we often see running through Dickinson’s poems. She seems to have experienced a love so great that everything else pales in comparison. She is therefore left contending with overwhelming want. But the intensity of this contention also drove her art. Her want drove her art.
It leaves me as a reader in an odd dilemma. This suffering, this meagre want, is what drove Dickinson to her art. And yet, would I have wished it on her? No, I wouldn’t. And yet again, would I deprive myself, and the world, of these poems? No, I wouldn't.
The Poverty that was not Wealth—
Cannot be Indigence.
These last two lines read as an imperative: you have to make art, however meagre, because “The Poverty that was not Wealth/ Cannot be (must not become) Indigence.”
Indigence is a state of destitution. To avoid this, we make art, however meagre it might be in comparison to having our desire.
There is a funny little twist in the line “The Poverty that was not Wealth.” This is worded in such a way that you can read that line as, “The poverty that was not (the same as the poverty of) wealth…” Wealth can be seen as a worse poverty because it is always in danger of loss. It hasn't yet had to deal with the "reverse." But wealth is only here in passing, and will have to deal with a fall eventually. The art of want, on the other hand, has only less to lose. Once you have mastered the meagre, the only reverse is for the better.
In the next stanza the thought continues,
Want—is a meagre Art
Acquired by Reverse—
To exist in state of want, or, unfulfilled desire, is an ideal. It’s an art. But how do we pull off this paradox? How do you remain perpetually in a state of desire without actually having that desire filled. It's a conundrum. It's not an easy art!
“Want,” as it is used here, can mean both desire and lack. When you put the two meanings in the same word and learn to deal, it is then that it becomes “Art.” You are, at once, both full of desire and in acceptance of being without the object of your desire.
Dickinson calls this a meagre Art and at first it seems this means the art of want is lacking in comparison to the art of having, is meagre in comparison. But knowing Dickinson, I think she’s being wry. She’s turning it around to say something like “less is more.” It’s not so much that the art itself is meagre, is a lesser art, but that mastering meagreness, having less, is the art.
Meagre is an interesting word. It can mean both lacking in quantity, as in, you have less, but also lacking in quality, as in, you are less. The poet here is feeling meagre, or lesser, precisely because she once had something so great. Having once had so much more makes no longer having it that much more difficult. This is a theme we often see running through Dickinson’s poems. She seems to have experienced a love so great that everything else pales in comparison. She is therefore left contending with overwhelming want. But the intensity of this contention also drove her art. Her want drove her art.
It leaves me as a reader in an odd dilemma. This suffering, this meagre want, is what drove Dickinson to her art. And yet, would I have wished it on her? No, I wouldn’t. And yet again, would I deprive myself, and the world, of these poems? No, I wouldn't.
The Poverty that was not Wealth—
Cannot be Indigence.
These last two lines read as an imperative: you have to make art, however meagre, because “The Poverty that was not Wealth/ Cannot be (must not become) Indigence.”
Indigence is a state of destitution. To avoid this, we make art, however meagre it might be in comparison to having our desire.
There is a funny little twist in the line “The Poverty that was not Wealth.” This is worded in such a way that you can read that line as, “The poverty that was not (the same as the poverty of) wealth…” Wealth can be seen as a worse poverty because it is always in danger of loss. It hasn't yet had to deal with the "reverse." But wealth is only here in passing, and will have to deal with a fall eventually. The art of want, on the other hand, has only less to lose. Once you have mastered the meagre, the only reverse is for the better.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
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