This intimate and provocative autobiography, first published in 1936, reveals the innermost thoughts of a great American poet. Edgar Lee Masters wa...
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Apr 11, 2009
Evan
rated it: 
244 dead residents of the Midwestern town of Spoon River (some based on real people and some fictional) tell the stories of their triumphs, frustrations, unrequited longings, their secrets --- often harboring lingering grudges about people buried alongside them. Whole families and neighbors, crosstalking in death. Each poem is titled with the name of the person speaking; each is short and most of them are heartbreaking. The wife and husband and the doctor, all scandalized by an abortion, the boy
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Oct 14, 2011
Karla (Mossy Love Grotto)
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I've trawled through many a 19th century small town newspaper for various research projects, and one's dirty linen was often hung out to dry for public view in the printed word. Old men running off with the serving girls, errant wives being tracked down and found in flagrante with their lovers, etc. I've even got a great-great-uncle whose wife was run out of town on a rail by "The Community" for her illicit affair with a neighbor. Nasty little Victorian Peyton Places. Reading Spoon Riv
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Jan 24, 2009
Michael
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I really enjoyed this. I was attracted to it as an example of a populist experimental narrative form... over 200 verse monologues of dead people buried together in a small-town cemetery. It was a best seller in 1914 or so. Not something I necessarily expected to read all the way through, but it caught me up and won my attention away from a couple other books I was reading simultaneously. Then made me pick up a little Whitman after I was done.
Great sense of the small-town Midwest More...
Great sense of the small-town Midwest More...
Oct 04, 2011
Justin
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After a full summer battling Infinite Jest (and thoroughly enjoying it), this book was welcome relief. It is a mix of homespun wisdom and incredibly insightful commentary. While very accessible, Masters is astute. He has a lot to say about living, death, and regret (and a surprising amount on lawyers). This is the kind of book you can give to your Grandma, with a nice note that says "I love you," and then have something to discuss over the holidays as you help her wash the dishes.
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Jun 01, 2011
Jen
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This is a conceptually intriguing book in which the residents (represented by over 200 poems) of a small town cemetery speak from the grave about the truth as they see it, being free from social pressure or potential retribution to present themselves or others in a good light.
I think it's important to remember that Masters was a lawyer by profession, a person who had heard people's testimonies about incidents and different people and had seen how judges and juries dealt with them. This More...
I think it's important to remember that Masters was a lawyer by profession, a person who had heard people's testimonies about incidents and different people and had seen how judges and juries dealt with them. This More...
Jan 04, 2011
Rebecca
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In high school, I was part of a class that inspired a lot of my teaching, called American Studies. This class combined American history and literature, with an emphasis on acting and creativity. We had debates as historical figures, reenacted major events in history, and traveled in imaginary prairie schooners across the western plains. We also put on plays, including an adaptation of Spoon River Anthology. The haunting, free form poems have stuck with me, and I still love to flip through an
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Nov 18, 2010
Good god just read Elizabeth Childers:
Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
And stopped when you left me for Life.
It is well, my child. For you never traveled
The long, long way that begins with school days,
When little fingers blur under the tears
That fall on the crooked letters.
An More...
Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
And stopped when you left me for Life.
It is well, my child. For you never traveled
The long, long way that begins with school days,
When little fingers blur under the tears
That fall on the crooked letters.
An More...
Oct 02, 2010
Lize
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From 1915, this anthology of poems leads you through a small-town graveyard, where the dead themselves tell the stories behind each tombstone. And what they describe is heartbreaking; lost loves, unfulfilled dreams, and all the other secrets people take to their graves, laid open for all to see. Some of the poems may seem old-fashioned to modern readers, but others pack a punch that transcends all time. Margaret Fuller Slack's life struck the greatest chord with me:
47. Margaret Ful More...
47. Margaret Ful More...
Aug 18, 2010
Fluffy
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Edgar Lee Masters is famous for one book, Spoon River Anthology. He wrote other things, many very different from that work, but those pieces were received with lukewarm enthusiasm.
There was something about the Anthology that struck a chord with readers. The small, fictitious town of Spoon River is the setting for a series of first person short stories about the townsfolk. Short, blank verse poetry almost. And after a while you might suspect that there is some deeper meaning going on More...
There was something about the Anthology that struck a chord with readers. The small, fictitious town of Spoon River is the setting for a series of first person short stories about the townsfolk. Short, blank verse poetry almost. And after a while you might suspect that there is some deeper meaning going on More...
May 25, 2010
Ruth
rated it:
436 pages. Donated 2010 May.
An anthology of poems, with an introduction and annotations. Spoon River Anthology (1915, 1916) is widely known but not well understoof. No other volume of American poetry made such an immediate impact, and few have been so influential. Composted of monologues spoken by the dead in a midwestern cemetry, it was conceptually stunning; focused on the inner lives of even the violent and the sexually maladjusted, it was shockingly frank; written in flatly reali More...
An anthology of poems, with an introduction and annotations. Spoon River Anthology (1915, 1916) is widely known but not well understoof. No other volume of American poetry made such an immediate impact, and few have been so influential. Composted of monologues spoken by the dead in a midwestern cemetry, it was conceptually stunning; focused on the inner lives of even the violent and the sexually maladjusted, it was shockingly frank; written in flatly reali More...
Oct 10, 2009
Ben
rated it:
i admit that i probably love the idea of this book more than the actual book, but i love the idea of it so damn much that the actual thing still gets five stars. a portrait of a small american town through the from-the-dead poem-soliloquies of hundreds of its departed inhabitants, it's unlike any other book i've ever read. the dead folk discuss their lives and deaths and thoughts and beliefs and relationships with each other, the town, and the larger world. it's from the dead so there's a pronou
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Jan 21, 2012
Taka
rated it: 
Good stuff, especially in the beginning.
In Spoon River Anthology, numerous characters refer to one another and create a web of interrelationships. The sheer number of interconnections in turn helps represent the fictional town of Spoon River, a difficult task to accomplish with standalone short stories or even novels focused on one protagonist. The successful representation of the community might be due to the strength of monologues, whose conciseness makes it easier to portray so many More...
In Spoon River Anthology, numerous characters refer to one another and create a web of interrelationships. The sheer number of interconnections in turn helps represent the fictional town of Spoon River, a difficult task to accomplish with standalone short stories or even novels focused on one protagonist. The successful representation of the community might be due to the strength of monologues, whose conciseness makes it easier to portray so many More...
Aug 01, 2011
Kurt
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I first read this book in high school, and when I saw a copy in a discount section of a bookstore, I was honestly surprised that it was considered poetry. My 15 year old memories were of many residents of a small town airing their grievances about religious hypocrisy, sexual scandals, and a catastrophic bank failure. I had remembered only the fascinating little soap opera elements and none of the poetic achievements of the book. Reading the book as an adult, though, I am much more struck by Mast
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Sep 14, 2010
Jerry
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Talk about a depressing read. Every single character in this book was dead. Every single one! After reading this, I would not be surprised at all if Edgar Lee Masters lived next to (or grew up on) a cemetery as a kid.
Maybe I'm just not smart (or emo) enough to fully appreciate poetry like this, but there were definitely times when I caught myself mentally wandering off while reading this. (I blame the ADD.) Don't get me wrong, there were parts that I enjoyed, but as a whole, I didn' More...
Maybe I'm just not smart (or emo) enough to fully appreciate poetry like this, but there were definitely times when I caught myself mentally wandering off while reading this. (I blame the ADD.) Don't get me wrong, there were parts that I enjoyed, but as a whole, I didn' More...
Sep 21, 2009
Raymond
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Those people in the Spoon River Cemetery have been at their rest for nearly a century now since they first were introduced to the world with Edgar Lee Masters' intimate obituaries in poetry. "Spoon River Anthology" was published in 1915. Many in the cemetery have become more quaint, more curious. Judgments on some of them seem more unfair. We ponder those young women dead from abortions in a new aura. The "Anthology" is an unmatched work in American literary efforts. It never
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Jul 10, 2011
Bill
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The dead of Spoon River, IL tell their stories
The Good: This is a great collection of poems. Each poem is written from the point of view from a resident of the town's cemetery. There are long-standing rivalries, misunderstandings, stories of love, stories of hate, stories of redemption and sorrow. I love the stories that play off one another, where the readers gets a few different perspectives on the same turn of events. All of this culminates into an epic poem called "The More...
The Good: This is a great collection of poems. Each poem is written from the point of view from a resident of the town's cemetery. There are long-standing rivalries, misunderstandings, stories of love, stories of hate, stories of redemption and sorrow. I love the stories that play off one another, where the readers gets a few different perspectives on the same turn of events. All of this culminates into an epic poem called "The More...
Jul 19, 2009
Chad
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All things being even, I really prefer prose to poetry, and therein lies my luke-warm respect for the Spoon River Anthology. Not that Masters didn't write a rather interesting and readable work here. And not that what he wrote was poetry in the conventional sense.
The things I liked, I really liked. I rather enjoyed the way Masters was able to weave several subtle narratives in and out of the epitaphs (or 'poems', if you prefer) of the inhabitants of The Hill, the cemetary where li More...
The things I liked, I really liked. I rather enjoyed the way Masters was able to weave several subtle narratives in and out of the epitaphs (or 'poems', if you prefer) of the inhabitants of The Hill, the cemetary where li More...
May 02, 2011
La Stamberga dei Lettori
rated it:
Breve nota esplicativa da leggersi prima della recensione:
Io non amo la poesia.
Ho letto quel tanto che la scuola e l’università hanno comandato, nonché qualche testo selezionato per mio piacere e cultura personale. Tra questi, mi è capitata tra le mani l’Antologia di Spoon River.
Tutto ciò, per anticiparvi che non sono un’esperta di poesia, dimentico sempre i nomi di tutte le figure retoriche, non m’importa molto del ritmo né della rima: le poesie che mi catturano il cuore, le amo per le immagini More...
Io non amo la poesia.
Ho letto quel tanto che la scuola e l’università hanno comandato, nonché qualche testo selezionato per mio piacere e cultura personale. Tra questi, mi è capitata tra le mani l’Antologia di Spoon River.
Tutto ciò, per anticiparvi che non sono un’esperta di poesia, dimentico sempre i nomi di tutte le figure retoriche, non m’importa molto del ritmo né della rima: le poesie che mi catturano il cuore, le amo per le immagini More...
Sep 05, 2010
Jason
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Haunting and revelatory portrait of small-town, Midwest, Americana, with all the same skeletons in closets that we see in contemporary soap operas and trash TV. Clearly, Masters saw something entirely different in his Illinois home than our collectively imagined "Good Ol Days." The collected epitaphs--written in free verse-- suggest a coherent arc comprising nineteen stories with two hundred and forty-four characters. This arc is itself encapsulated and retold in the Spooniad, a mock-Homeric epi
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Jan 24, 2009
Mel
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I am not usually a great lover of poetry but I enjoyed reading this. What really interested me were the little puzzle pieces of interconnected lives (and deaths) found in almost every verse. I don't agree with the idea that this is "the original poetic indictment of small-town secrets" or an effort to "expose the ugly truths" and hypocrisy of small towns in the Midwest, as I've gathered from almost every professional analysis of this work. Why is it that literary critics are
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May 13, 2010
Jenny
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I heard about this anthology first in The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, and when I went back to look for it, I also found an album based on the songs. So I used my Rhapsody account and listened to The Hill by Richard Buckner while reading the 244 accounts by dead people in the cemetary on the hill in Spoon River.
Some of my favorites included Robert Davidson (creepy), Faith Matheny (and her visions of God and love), Mary McNeely ("Passerby, To love is to find your own soul thr More...
Some of my favorites included Robert Davidson (creepy), Faith Matheny (and her visions of God and love), Mary McNeely ("Passerby, To love is to find your own soul thr More...
Oct 14, 2010
Melinda
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This was an interesting read - the longer I listened to it, the more I was able to sense how the characters' lives intertwined. Most people, even small town folk, have things to hide, skeletons in the closet, so to speak. These poetic descriptions invite the reader to discover who each towns person is and what secrets he or she is revealing or what truths are finally being disclosed.
I liked how the opening poem tied in so many of the characters about whom I would be later discovering. T More...
I liked how the opening poem tied in so many of the characters about whom I would be later discovering. T More...
Apr 28, 2009
Kristen
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Almost done reading this, though it's a slog. The poems are all very much alike and reading more than 3 or 4 in a sitting is incredibly depressing... but what can one expect when reading a collection of poems by and about dead people and death?
Things I'm finding interesting:
1. Masters' imaginary Spoon River cemetery is evidently organized by theme, not family relations. All the people who hate the town banker are buried near each other. All the people who doubt the exis More...
Things I'm finding interesting:
1. Masters' imaginary Spoon River cemetery is evidently organized by theme, not family relations. All the people who hate the town banker are buried near each other. All the people who doubt the exis More...
Jun 19, 2011
Misti
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"Yee Bow"
They got me into the Sunday-school
In Spoon River
And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus.
I could have been no worse off
If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.
For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,
And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,
The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs,
With a blow of his fist.
Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,
And no children sh More...
They got me into the Sunday-school
In Spoon River
And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus.
I could have been no worse off
If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.
For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,
And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,
The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs,
With a blow of his fist.
Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,
And no children sh More...
Jul 18, 2011
Sharayah
rated it:
Alfred Moir
Why was I not devoured by self-contempt,
And rotted down by indifference
And impotent revolt like "Indignation" Jones?
Why, with all my errant steps,
Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke?
And why, though I stood at Burchard's bar,
As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys
To buy the drinks, did the curse of drink
Fall on me like rain that runs off,
Leaving the soul of me dry and clean?
And why did I never kill a man
Li More...
Why was I not devoured by self-contempt,
And rotted down by indifference
And impotent revolt like "Indignation" Jones?
Why, with all my errant steps,
Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke?
And why, though I stood at Burchard's bar,
As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys
To buy the drinks, did the curse of drink
Fall on me like rain that runs off,
Leaving the soul of me dry and clean?
And why did I never kill a man
Li More...
Jan 02, 2011
Inder
rated it:
Published in 1914, each poem in the Spoon River Anthology is an imagined epitaph, spoken from the perspective of a dead resident of Spoon River, Illinois. Each has its own voice, and its own story. Some of the dead speak of contentment and happiness - most speak of heart wrenching loss and longing. Read together, they paint a vivid picture of the 19th century small-town American mid-west, rife with struggles political (robber barons, corrupt bankers, labor conflicts, prohibitionists, suffragette
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Jun 22, 2009
Katie
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I'm rereading this after 25 years and can't put it down. These are beautiful poems, all of them. So short, so simple, never plain, so complex, so surprising. Eat them, taste them, drink them, go back and roll in them again.
When I read this book at fourteen, I was depressed and wanted to die, and here I found a couple hundred people who already had. (For some reason, after eight months of nuclear holocausts, the Civil War, sci-fi and horror, my English teacher thought it was a goo More...
When I read this book at fourteen, I was depressed and wanted to die, and here I found a couple hundred people who already had. (For some reason, after eight months of nuclear holocausts, the Civil War, sci-fi and horror, my English teacher thought it was a goo More...
Apr 09, 2008
Noor
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i didn't actually read every single poem, but...
Spoon River is excellent!
At first, Masters' introduction of characters fazed/bewildered/annoyed me, but as i read on, i learned to look not at the characters, but through them, which helped a lot... I really liked the way this small town took shape through the eyes of so many different people, like a mosaic made of all these pieces of wandering debris that just happened to end up in the same place...
my favorite poem is probably " More...
Spoon River is excellent!
At first, Masters' introduction of characters fazed/bewildered/annoyed me, but as i read on, i learned to look not at the characters, but through them, which helped a lot... I really liked the way this small town took shape through the eyes of so many different people, like a mosaic made of all these pieces of wandering debris that just happened to end up in the same place...
my favorite poem is probably " More...
Apr 23, 2010
Gayle
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This was our most recent book club selection and it wasn't my favorite. At times I felt like I was wading through a college assignment trying to make sense of some of the poems, and overall, it was just pretty negative and depressing. There were a handful of the poems (monologues from people buried in the cemetery of a small town) that I really liked, but overall there were too many that dealt with affairs, murders and basically the lifeview that God isn't important and there is no purpose to li
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Jun 01, 2009
Geniuswill42
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We read selections from this in English and I was like "Whoa this is a cool and eclectic mix of epitaphs written by themselves." I get the book and realize that it's not an eclectic mix it's just one unrealistically depressing epitaph after another of people having affairs and lieing all the time and I'm like "OK no town is this depressing." It just got repeptive and sameish. If it was 20 pages shorter it would have been better, but it was just overkill of the same basic i
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