Spoon River Anthology

The dead of a small Illinois town speak for themselves here, each in a short free-verse epitaph delivered from the hillside cemetery above Spoon River. Edgar Lee Masters gives voice to more than two hundred former residents: the banker and the seamstress, the drunkard, the unfaithful wife, the idealist worn down by compromise. What they could not say in life comes out plainly now, and their confessions cross and contradict one another until the whole town stands revealed. First published in 1915, the collection shook American poetry with its plain speech and its refusal to flatter. It remains one of the most quietly devastating portraits of ordinary lives ever written. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.