Read by Lokon, Matthew Shepherd, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), Forrest Beal, Joshua Young, Kurt Copeland, Gesine, Fox in the Stars, Westwinds12, Anthony Craine · 246 chapters · 6 h 10
What if the dead of a small town could speak? In Spoon River Anthology, the villagers of an imagined Midwestern community rise from the hillside cemetery to tell, in short free-verse monologues, who they really were. A banker, a teacher, a drunkard, a seamstress, a preacher and a doctor take turns. Some confess, some defend themselves, some settle old scores, and some gossip about neighbours who lie beside them. Together the voices build a portrait of an entire community, with its pride and hypocrisy, its small kindnesses and its buried sorrows. Because each poem is brief and self-contained, the collection can be heard in small doses or in a single long sitting. Ten LibriVox volunteers share the reading across 246 chapters, over roughly six hours, so the voices change from grave to grave. It is a haunting, sometimes funny, often moving listen for anyone curious about how poetry can tell a whole society's story.
Introduction
Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) was an American lawyer and poet who published Spoon River Anthology in 1916. The book gathers brief epitaph-like poems spoken by the dead of a fictional town called Spoon River. It was a surprise success and is still the work for which Masters is best remembered. Its plain, direct free verse stood out in a period when much American poetry was still ornate.
The idea is simple and powerful. Each speaker looks back on a life from beyond the grave and no longer has any reason to pretend. Characters recur and cross-refer, so a name met in one poem may reappear in another with a different light cast on it. Titles in the recording, such as Hod Putt, Ollie McGee and Fletcher McGee, are named after the speakers.
The audio edition has 246 chapters and runs for about 6.2 hours. Ten LibriVox volunteers take part, which suits the format well: each poem is a separate voice, so a change of reader feels natural.
It is worth hearing today because it treats ordinary people with seriousness and curiosity, and because its central question, how much of a life the neighbours ever see, has not aged at all. Listen in short stretches, or let the town speak to you for an afternoon. Since the poems are independent, there is no need to follow the order strictly. You might listen for a while, stop on a poem that surprises you, and return another day. Taken together they form a kind of map of a community, with its rumours, its resentments and its rare moments of quiet understanding between neighbours.
Public domain
Edgar Lee Masters died in 1950: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
