I do not know whether Spoon River Anthology still holds a place in public school curricula. They were, among other things, indicators of the stern and happy potentialities of life. Generations of students have read these poems-in other anthologies, fittingly, high school anthologies-and, perhaps in olden days, memorized some of them, free verse and all. Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness, But through a long sicknessĪnd they lighted a torch of hope and intuition Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments

“Act well your part, there all the honor lies.” The Village Atheist

The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes,Īnd all through the wisdom of Pope, the poet: With the fall of the bank-he was only cashier. Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty. You are submerged in the tub of yourself-Īnd that you know life. In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub. You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps, Here are more examples of Masters’s craft: Griffy the Cooper What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.Īt ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all, Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,Īnd by Spoon River gathering many a shell, We were married and lived together for seventy years,Įnjoying, working, raising the twelve children, Consider the reminiscence of a long-lived lady, with its flinty valedictory: Lucinda Matlockĭriving home in the moonlight of middle June, The lives and viewpoints thus chronicled are diverse and lively. Spoon River Anthology still qualifies in a sense, because its central conceit is that each poem is voiced by a deceased town resident speaking from the grave. Usually we think of an anthology as a collection of poems or other content by various authors. There is also Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), who published a poetry collection titled Spoon River Anthology in 1915. Galesburg’s literary fame does not rest only on the shoulders of Carl Sandburg and Jack Finney. Spoon River Anthology, first edition, in its original dust jacket, quoting a laudatory review.

Spoon river anthology poems