The first notion of Spoon River poems came to its author upon reading a Greek Anthology. After reading he was determined to write his own anthology following a conversation with his mother of the old days. He began to write Spoon River to give voices to the small-town dead and living as “characters interlocked by fate.” Here is one of the
214 poems written over some ten months:
Yee Bow
They got me into Sunday-school
in Spoon River
And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus.
I could have been worse off
If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.
For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,
And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,
The minister’s son, caved my ribs into my lungs,
With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never
sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,
And no children shall worship at my grave.
by Edward Lee Masters
from Spoon River Anthology
Collier Books, NY 1962
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