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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