“The Dead” by Billy Collins

Animation for “The Dead” video by Juan Delcan
Credit: Pinterest.com

Former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins, who Bruce Weber of the The New York Times called “the most popular poet in America,” writes conversational, playful poems that drop observational truth bombs with a deft, lighthearted touch. Collins is a poet who brings his warmth and wit to the most sobering of topics, including death. His technique buoys his readers while he serves them tender musings on some of the more difficult realities of life and loss.

Collins poem “The Dead” imagines the dead as looking down on us from on high, while we go about the mundane tasks of our everyday lives. In Collins’ poem, they are not just there for the big moments, to swoop in and help in times of crisis or to swell with pride at times of triumph. They are there while we are “putting on our shoes or making a sandwich.” They are there for all the little moments that make us desperately miss a person who is woven into the fabric of our daily lives.  

The image of the the dead in “The Dead” is soothing and tranquil. They are up in heaven drifting along in boats, watching over those they’ve left behind:

they are looking down through the glass bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity

Billy Collins
Credit: thedailybeast.com

In the poem, the dead continue to bear witness to our commonplace activities, watching over us with a sheltering affection. The picture Collins paints of the dead has them offering a sense of security and emotional safety. “They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth” with attentive and sympathetic eyes. Their presence is a protective presence. 

and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a long afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,

which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

The poet Henry Taylor said of Collins writing: “I was very quickly swept up into the pleasant hospitality of the poems. They invite you into them.” I feel this when I read “The Dead.” It feels like a gentle, quirky invitation to consider the daunting and mysterious possibilities of what happens to the dead. The heavy handedness with which some poetry addresses the topic of death throws Collins approach into sharp relief. It’s a pleasure to take the extended hand of a poet who will take care of you as he helps you through the doorway of his own mind and into his own musings.