Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Distances," Charles Olson navigates themes of love, mastery, death, and the complex human yearning to bridge both literal and figurative distances. The poem interweaves mythological and historical references, from Zeus and Augustus to Pygmalion and Galatea, framing them within a meditation on desire’s power to bridge or highlight the distances between people, life and death, reality and idealized fantasy.

Olson begins with Galatea, a mythological figure famously carved into life by Pygmalion's love and devotion. In referencing her, Olson calls upon themes of transformation, artistic creation, and the compulsion to mold the beloved into a perfected image. The lover’s desire “for mastery” here seems almost inevitable. Olson’s pairing of “old Zeus—young Augustus” draws a line from the ancient Greek deity to the Roman emperor, a transition from divine power to human authority. Both figures represent forms of control: Zeus as a god with supernatural command, Augustus as a ruler shaping an empire. Yet, even with such powers, neither truly conquers the essential nature of love or death. This pairing underscores an ironic truth: in the presence of desire and mortality, even the most powerful figures find themselves helpless, reduced to longing and loss.

Love, according to Olson, knows “no distance” and is impervious to the changes brought by time or space. It defies physical separation, yet Olson complicates this statement by delving into the ways love can seek control. The image of the “German inventor in Key West” who kept a deceased Cuban lover's body, even stealing it back after her family took it away, captures this disturbing edge of possessiveness. The inventor, akin to a modern Pygmalion, keeps her corpse “live by all [his] arts,” revealing a consuming love that refuses to let go, even after death—a love that treats the beloved as an object to be retained rather than as a partner who exists in her own right.

In the poem’s central image, Olson envisions Augustus as a young man “out via nothing where messages are,” capturing both his historical distance from us and the ways in which power isolates. Augustus, sitting on a throne of “torsoes,” becomes a symbol of empire, of domination, yet he is ultimately distanced, almost alienated, from those over whom he rules. Olson reflects on this juxtaposition, hinting that the young emperor’s efforts to “undo distance” may come from a desire for connection and understanding, even as the drive for control perpetually distances him.

At the same time, Olson examines how youth and love are drawn to mystery and longing, but with an innocence that often defies the wisdom of age. “You can teach the young nothing,” he says, with “Aphrodite trick[ing] it out”—the goddess of love herself casting a spell that propels the young to pursue unreachable ideals, often leading to experiences that mirror the sorrow and frustration seen in their elders. The line “old Zeus—young Augustus” echoes throughout, reinforcing this cyclical nature of human desires and limitations across generations.

Olson’s final lines introduce an invocation that blends the romantic with the sacramental: “I wake you, stone. Love this man.” Here, the poet becomes Pygmalion, breathing life into stone, calling for the impossible to become possible. He conjures an image where “the impossible distance [is] healed,” where “young Augustus and old Zeus be enclosed.” This closing reveals Olson’s ultimate acknowledgment of love’s power to transcend the boundaries of mortality, empire, and self—offering, perhaps, a moment of unity across time, power, and death.

"Distances" thus positions love as both a force of creation and of containment, showing how it simultaneously connects and confines. Olson grapples with the elusive nature of desire, the futility of power, and the inescapable presence of death, suggesting that these forces define and shape human existence in ways as inevitable as they are mysterious. In the end, Olson asks if love—when it is finally unbound from attempts to possess or control—can indeed bridge the distances between lovers, between ages, and between life and death.

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