Portrait of a Couple
at Century’s End
“Portrait of a Couple at Century’s End” contrasts
the private pain of contemporary life to the aware-
ness of global strife. Its author, Sherod Santos, does
not give a detailed view of the couple mentioned
in the title but instead looks at their situation in
only the most general terms. He presents them as
the sort of anonymous people who live all over
America in warm, respectable homes and commute
to jobs that distract them from the fact that they are
out of touch with what is important in their lives.
These are people who have chosen a life of com-
fort over openly acknowledging the memories of
bad times that haunt them. The couple live a life
of quiet discontent, making small talk over dinner
and pretending that past arguments have no lin-
gering effect. Santos stands these controlled lives
against the international news that streams into the
couple’s living room over the twenty-four-hour
news network, bringing the horrors of modern ur-
ban warfare into their staid living room with the
same emotional suppression that characterizes the
couple’s quiet lives.
A version of “Portrait of a Couple at Century’s
End” was published in the January 7, 1992, issue
of the Nation. A revision of the poem is in The Pi-
lot Star Elegies, which was published in 1999 by
W. W. Norton and for which Santos was a finalist
for the National Book Award.
Sherod Santos
1999
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