Spoon River, Wider Than a Mile

Back when I was in high school, sometime during the presidential administration of  Zachary Taylor, my American literature teacher, Brother Steven, told us about "The Spoon River Anthology." The anthology is a series of poems written by Edgar Lee Masters about a hundred years ago, centering on the fictitious town of Spoon River, located along the very real Spoon River in Illinois. I don't remember anything else Brother Steven said, but then it was a long time ago.

(Some of you might be wondering how I could have been in high school during the Taylor presidency, 170 years ago, and studied poems written only one hundred years ago, but I am employing a device called "poetic license" you  see.)

Anyway, in the intervening years the "Anthology" has never been far from my thoughts. (And if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.) Not too long ago, I spotted a copy of the anthology at the public library and borrowed it. I've been going through the poems since then.

It turns out the poems are all in the voices of various deceased residents of the town, writing from  the graveyard. Taken together they are an indictment of small town hypocrisies and greed. What follows is one of them, in the voice of the town prostitute.

Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon
Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received
For supporting candidates for office?
Or for writing up the canning factory
To get people to invest?
Or for suppressing the facts about the bank,
When it was rotten and ready to break?
Did you ever hear of the Circuit Judge
Helping anyone except the "Q" railroad,
Or the bankers? Or did Rev. Peet or Rev. Sibley
Give any part of their salary, earned by keeping still,
Or speaking out as the leaders wished them to do,
To the building of the water works?
But I  Daisy Fraser who always passed
Along the street through rows of nods and smiles,
And coughs and words such as "there she goes."
Never was taken before Justice Arnett
Without contributing ten dollars and costs
To the school fund of Spoon River!