Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "As the Dead Prey Upon Us", Charles Olson explores the haunting persistence of memory, regret, and unresolved emotional entanglements. The poem presents the dead not merely as spectral presences but as facets of ourselves—"the dead in ourselves"—calling out for release. Through surreal, introspective scenes, Olson meditates on the bonds that tether both the living and the dead, suggesting a complex web of connections that transcend mortality.

Olson begins with an image of pushing his neglected car, which has sat unused and inert. This car, needing air and repairs, symbolizes the stagnation within his own life—the accumulation of experiences and memories that have not been tended to. When the poet sees the underbelly of the car, a mass of worn rubber and tattered threads, it evokes an image of the dead souls in the living room, gathered around his mother in a scene that mixes domesticity with the supernatural. The dead wander around as if seeking meaning in their routines, still "desperate with the tawdriness of their life in hell." Olson’s inquiry to one of these souls, asking "How is it, there?" evokes a response of “we are poor poor,” reflecting a purgatorial existence where the dead remain trapped in their former lives’ mundane remnants.

The poet’s mother appears among these dead, solid and familiar, sitting in her chair just as she did in life. Her weekly returns to this space seem to comfort and disturb him in equal measure. Her presence represents an unresolved emotional bond that remains powerful, even after death. Olson’s own struggle with this is clear in his expression of regret: "O peace, mother, I do not know how differently I could have done what I did or did not do." This line encapsulates the poem’s central tension—the yearning for closure that may never come, an aching reflection on how the past continues to exert its grip on the present.

A surreal moment unfolds as Olson and an Indian woman walk a “blue deer” around a room. This fantastical creature, acquiring human characteristics and seeking shoes, symbolizes the incomplete transformation that the poet himself yearns for—a shift from one state of being to another. The deer’s partial humanity embodies a kind of spiritual potential that remains unrealized, reflecting Olson’s sense of entrapment. This struggle is deepened by references to the "five hindrances" from Buddhist philosophy—obstacles like sensual desire and doubt that block spiritual enlightenment. In Olson’s vision, these “nets” entangle both men and angels, trapping them within cycles of desire and illusion.

As Olson muses on paradise, he equates it with an elusive moment of peace, "an instant of being" that is constantly slipping away. The dead souls, including his mother, return each week to the living room, drawn there by the desire for fulfillment they could not attain in life. They gather in a space filled with reminders of the mundane—a movie projector, display cards, trivial objects—and these trappings underscore the sense of poverty that Olson associates with their state. Here, hell is not a fiery underworld but a place of restless dissatisfaction, a repetition of unfulfilling scenes from life.

The poem’s final stanzas intensify Olson’s call for liberation. He urges his mother, the dead souls, and himself to "awake" from these entangling nets and to find freedom. He longs for these "sodden nets" to disappear, to finally let his mother rest and release her—and himself—from the lingering shadows of the past. Yet, he recognizes the difficulty of truly severing these bonds; he observes that "the nets of being are only eternal if you sleep," hinting that awareness and active engagement are necessary to break free from these cyclical entrapments.

Olson’s plea, "O souls, burn alive, burn now that you may forever have peace," is a call for transformative engagement with life, a kind of spiritual awakening that liberates one from the need to return to past moments and relive unresolved experiences. This fiery imagery suggests a process of self-purification, where the living and the dead alike must confront and dissolve the “knots” that hold them in place. Olson believes that each knot within these “nets” of existence can be untangled by touch and understanding—a deeply spiritual notion that seeks to turn every bond into "its own flame."

The poem closes with a poignant request for peace: Olson asks his mother to remain in her chair, to finally rest. He envisions a scene where the blue deer and the haunting souls are gone, where the automobile—the symbol of life’s stalled ambitions—is “hauled away.” This vision of peace is fragile yet profound; it suggests a world in which each spirit, each soul, can finally find contentment.

"As the Dead Prey Upon Us" is ultimately a meditation on the entangled relationship between life and death, presence and memory. Through layered, surreal imagery and existential questioning, Olson conveys the weight of emotional inheritance, the persistence of memory, and the difficulty of finding true liberation. His final exhortation to “awake” is not only a plea for release but an invitation to confront and transform the complexities of one’s inner life. Only through this awakening can the living hope to avoid the fate of the dead souls, who, tethered to their unfinished lives, return again and again to seek the peace they were unable to find.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...