The Books: “The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry” – Edgar Lee Masters

Daily Book Excerpt: Poetry

The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Volume 1: Modern Poetry, edited by Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair

Edgar Lee Masters was a lawyer and a poet. He had published a couple of books and biographies (one of Walt Whitman, a poet he admired). He was no slouch. But a major poet? No. However, he ended up writing a series of poems told from the point of view of the dead of a small town called Spoon River, and it’s called Spoon River Anthology – and it has to be one of the most popular (in terms of copies sold, editions made) books of poetry of all time.

I can’t imagine Edgar Lee Masters would have been known if he hadn’t taken on the job of “mimic”, or “mouthpiece”, whatever you want to call it … because what happens in these poems is that you begin to hear specific voices, cadences, accents – these people are raw. They have nothing to hide anymore. They are dead, but they plead with us, the living. They plead for understanding, retribution, forgiveness … They reach out from beyond the grave, trying to either make things right, or be heard, or to defend their horrible actions. None of these people are happy. None of these people are sitting in the blessed light of Jesus. The afterlife is seen as a pretty bleak place, of writhing personalities still torn-up about what happened back on earth. The poems can be tough to read. There is no distance in them. These characters scream at you, “hear me, hear me …”

Masters imagines his way into another person’s psyche, and speaks AS THEM. That is his gift. If he had been writing verse about the beautiful sunset over his town or the way the river looked at dawn or about his childhood memories, we’d never be anthologizing him. Spoon River Anthology put him on the map. I believe it was a success during his lifetime, too. He didn’t have to wait (like all the characters in Spoon River Anthology) until after his death to have his say.

I have a personal connection with Spoon River Anthology.

My acting teacher in college (or one of them) had his classes, every year, pick out poems from “Spoon River” to work on. Because each poem is a mini-monologue, with character details – and past history – and objective, and obstacle – they are really good for actors to work on. Making anguish real, or … what is the objective of this character? To plead for forgiveness? To try to get what REALLY happened across? Whatever it is, you the actor have to make it specific, and you have to make it real. It is NOT easy. But it was gratifying work, and I still remember my “person”, poor little cross-eyed Minerva Jones. Trying to make those last two lines real and alive – when you’re an 18 year old actress – is NOT EASY.

Minerva Jones

I am Minerva, the village poetess,
Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street
For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,
And all the more when “Butch” Weldy
Captured me after a brutal hunt.
He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;
And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,
Like stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice.
Will someone go to the village newspaper
And gather into a book the verses I wrote?–
I thirsted so for love!
I hungered so for life!

Masters’ gift was in capturing all of the griefs and anger and seething resentments of small-town America – but breaking it up into small chunks like that, each one different – so by the end of that book, you have a full tapestry. It really hit a chord at the time. No matter who you are, where you come from, you will find a little bit of yourself in Spoon River Anthology. It might be spread out over 5 or 6 poems – you relate to a little bit of this one, a little bit of that one … and taken on as a whole, it starts to feel like he has somehow captured all of humanity in it. You recognize people when you read it.

In general, it’s not a cozy world-view he has, and the poems are pretty tough to read, especially if you read them all together. I like to break them up. I’ll just pick up the book and read one poem, put it down again.

Each poem is a whole world in miniature. It’s extraordinary. People are naming names, man, after death – they want us to know WHO did this to them, who hurt them, who betrayed them. And each voice is specific, you can hear the old men, young girls, frumpy housewives, mechanics, the local doctor. Edgar Lee Masters had a unique ear: he could hear everybody.

If any of you out there are acting teachers of beginning actors in the age-range of, oh, 17 to 22 … consider using Spoon River Anthology as a source of monologues for your class. Or read the book yourself, and assign a poem to each person – based on what you know about that person, what they might need to work on, etc. I would say any younger than 17 would not be good, because of the subject matter of the poems. But it’s a great acting exercise, a great way to exercise the imagination of young actors. They are also great to teach what it means by “high stakes”. People, in general, don’t want to live in a state of “high stakes” all the time, and actors are no different. There isn’t a poem in the collection where the stakes are not as high as they can be, and actors need to learn to always go for the highest-stake situation.

I mean, here it is 20 years later, and I still remember “I thirsted so for love, I hungered so for life!”

Here is another poem from Spoon River Anthology:

Elsa Wertman

I was a peasant girl from Germany,
Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.
And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene’s.
On a summer’s day when she was away
He stole into the kitchen and took me
Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat,
I turning my head. Then neither of us
Seemed to know what happened.
And I cried for what would become of me.
And cried and cried as my secret began to show.
One day Mrs. Greene said she understood,
And would make no trouble for me,
And, being childless, would adopt it.
(He had given her a farm to be still. )
So she hid in the house and sent out rumors,
As if it were going to happen to her.
And all went well and the child was born — They were so kind to me.
Later I married Gus Wertman, and years passed.
But — at political rallies when sitters-by thought I was crying
At the eloquence of Hamilton Greene —
That was not it.
No! I wanted to say:
That’s my son!
That’s my son!