Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, March 6th, 2024. Today's poem is by Bertolt Brecht, and it's called A Worker Reads History. I'll read the poem once, offer a few comments, and then maybe read it one more time.

Here is a worker reads history.

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?

The books are filled with names of kings.

Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?

In Babylon, so many times destroyed, who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses that city glittering with gold lived those who built it. In the evening, when the Chinese wall was finished,

where did the masons go? Imperial Rome is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom did

the Caesar's triumph? Byzantium lives in song.

Were all her dwellings, palaces?

And even in Atlantis of the legend, the night the seas rushed in,

the drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.

He alone?

Caesar beat the Gauls. Was there not even a cook in his army?

Philip of Spain wept as his fleet was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?

Frederick the Great triumphed in the seven years war. Who triumphed with him? Each page a victory at whose expense the

victory ball. Every ten years a great man, who paid the piper? So many particulars, so many

questions.

Bertolt Brecht was a 20th century German playwright and poet and very much a Marxist.

And frankly, one of the marks against Marxism in my book is that Marxism is a philosophy that tends to create very few good poets.

But I am an equal opportunity entertainer of witty complaints, and this is a

witty complaint if ever I heard one. Plus, it's a witty complaint that aligns beautifully

...