Poem: A History Without Suffering by E.A. Markham

A couple months ago I had the opportunity to compete in a regional Poetry Out Loud competition. For those of you that don't know, Poetry Out Loud is a dramatic poetry reading competition for high-schoolers, and is sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. I had so much fun meeting new people, while also getting to hear some pretty awesome poetry. That being said, at the competition each contestant shared three different poems, and I've decided to share one of my favorites from the ones I presented. A History Without Suffering by E.A. Markham is a powerful poem for all of us, and I love how relevant it is in our world today. Please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on it, or another poem that you love. Have a great day, and keep on reading!

-The Soup Chef

A History Without Suffering

By E.A. Markham

In this poem there is no suffering.

It spans hundreds of years and records

no deaths, connecting when it can,

those moments where people are healthy



and happy, content to be alive. A Chapter,

maybe a Volume, shorn of violence

consists of an adults reading aimlessly.

This line is the length of a full life



smuggled in while no one was plotting 

against a neighbour, except in jest.

Then, after a gap, comes Nellie. She

is in a drought-fisted field 



with a hoe. This is her twelfth year

on the land, and today her back 

doesn't hurt. Catechisms of self-pity 

and of murder have declared a day's truce



in the Civil War within her. So today,

we can bring Nellie, content with herself,

with the world, into our History.

For a day. In the next generation



we find a suitable subject camping 

near the border of a divided country:

for a while no one knows how near. For these

few lines she is ours. But how about



the lovers? you ask, the freshly-washed 

body close to yours; sounds, smells, tastes;

anticipation of the young, the edited memory

of the rest of us? How about thoughts 



higher than their thinkers?... Yes, yes.

Give them half a line and a mass of footnotes:

they have their own privileged history,

like inherited income beside our husbandry.



We bring our History up to date

in a city like London: someone's just paid

the mortgage, is free of guilt

and not dying of cancer; and going 



past the news-stand, doesn't see a headline

advertising torture. This is all

recommended reading, but in small doses. 

It shows you can avoid suffering, if you try. 

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