There is no Spoon River, IL. Check your map. Several towns argue that they stake their claim in being what Masters asserted to be this mythical town. Petersburg and Lewistown, two towns of otherwise minor repute seem closest... but it is so much better we haven't an actual town... Spoon River's residents are our next door neighbors, whether we live in Central Illinois or Central Florida, or southern Alaska.

Masters has written not fables, but the essence of American life. He hasn't captured the life and times of 1915, but has instead recorded in 1915 the life and times of our present day America.

The same reason the paintings of Norman Rockwell makes sense is why Edgar Lee Masters poetry makes sense. To read the quick messages on the gravestone of one man, learning a little bit him, and something about a neighbor or two, we can learn a little about how we live in communities today.

Our lives, like Jimmy Stewart's character in "It's a Wonderful Life" found out, interact and impact everyone we meet. Who we love, who we should love and who we reject. And when we die, others feel the loss. Masters has aptly put this in a humorous, yet insightful way into short verses.

The poems don't rhyme. The meter is not solid, and the poetics aren't intricate. They aren't poems like Poe's or Dickinson, not in the way they wrote American poems. Don't expect iambic pentameter-based sonnets or villanelles. Expect a conversation, and listen in.

The poetry here is in the subtle use of social nuance. In the nuances are his insight and wit. Two readings will bring to light what you miss in the first.

Buy this book, read it slow. It reads faster than most poetry book, but don't get caught in the temptation to zoom through each poem just because you can.

After you read it, see the play if it happens to be performed in your town.

I fully recommend it.

Anthony Trendl

Inspired by The Greek Anthology, a collection of brief poems from the Hellenistic World including epitaphs written from the perspective of the deceased, Edgar Lee Masters wrote a series of monologues spoken by dead townspeople (some more fictional than others) who inhabited Spoon River, the area in Illinois where Abe Lincoln once lived. Real people include Anne Rutledge (Abe's first girlfriend) and Fiddler Jones, who worked in Lincoln's general store as a boy.

But this book isn't about Abraham Lincoln. It's about the trait that we will all, both saints and sinners, one day have in common: death. And it is about the small triumphs of life that the dead remember. Just as William Carlos Williams was a doctor, and his poetry was informed by his contact with everyday people, so too Masters. He was a lawyer and a keen observationist. He writes directly and frankly, especially about male-female relations, which earned this book a bit of a scandalous reputation in its time. Of course, it is mild enough today that the book is assigned reading in junior highs, even in the South.

I've read this book three times through, and often re-read individual favorites. And I have it in easy reach on my shelf because I plan to keep re-reading it. There is something about the people of Spoon River and their sentiments that keeps me coming back. As May Swenson says, in her introduction to this edition, Masters "bequeathed to us a world in microcosm." A world, in my opinion, worth exploring again and again.

Edgar Lee Masters was a Chicago attorney who, long before Lake Woebegone, wrote of the mythical village of Spoon River, IL. Specifically, of the real stories of the people in it's graveyard. Now that they're dead the truth can finally be told. And almost all of them lived lives of terrible lies. I was introduced to it in Jr. High, was blown away at the realization that people all around me probably had these same kinds of secrets, living with them hidden, or hoped they were hidden. Paraphrasing, "I was of the party of Prohibition (anti-alcohol), villagers thought I died from eating watermelon. It was my liver. Every day at noon I slipped behind the partition at the drug store and had a generous drink from the bottle labeled Spiritum Fermenti!" The several poems that introduce Hamilton Greene are as powerful as anything I've ever read. Do yourself a huge favor, read this book! And then imagine yourself in the Spoon River graveyard, finally able to tell the truth about your life.

This is a fabulous photo, caption, and appendix compendium for people interested in the many varieties of flatware designed for specific use. Of particular interest to me are the double-page spreads illustrating the different kinds of forks, spoons, and knives, so that one can get a sense of relative size and shape. The down side (yes, I know this would be an up side for some readers) is that the book is cluttered with recipes, making it hard to find information relating to the cutlery. I'd be much happier the food photos run with just captions, amidst appendix material used as body text, with an appendix of recipes, than the other way round. If I want to buy a cookbook, I'll buy a cookbook.