![]() ![]() ![]() The dead know what has happened in the town since their deaths - "Do you remember, passer-by," one man says, "the path I wore across the lot where now stands the opera house" - and about the other townspeople who have joined them under the hill. The book consists of a series of short monologues by the inhabitants of a graveyard in a small Illinois town, all written in free verse. Not many people talk about it today, but I don't think it has lost any of its appeal over the years. It is rare among classics of American poetry in actually having enjoyed, immediately, the popularity it deserved, and it even seems to have been a success in translation. The Anthology is one of the few books of poetry that I would confidently recommend to people who don't normally read poetry. I was reading a handful of books at the same time as the Spoon River Anthology, and it succeeded in winning my time away from its competitors and being finished first, which is definitely a sign of a certain kind of literary merit, and an especially impressive achievement for a book of verse. ![]()
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