Along the Spoon River With Edgar Lee Masters
by Michael Escoubas
Inspired by Masters’ poem “The Hill,”
which introduces his seminal collection,
The Spoon River Anthology.

You had a heart for Illinois, Mr. Masters.
You gave your people common names:
Elmer and Herman, Bert and Tom.
They got their hands dirty from honest work.

They lived in the blood and dust of life.
“The Hill” pulls no punches about the gritty
lives they lived. “The Hill” was a place each went,
when day was done, when night brought down

the curtain on their lives. They went to sleep,
one passed in fever, one burned in a mine,
one killed in a brawl, one died in jail. “The Hill”
became the one thing they held in common.

And the girls, Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith;—
one would like to have known them better—
their hearts knew the best and the worst
life could throw at them. And yet, they lived.

Thank you, Edgar Lee Masters, for taking
us common folk with you down the Spoon.
Your stories, though oft-times tragic,
impart to us, the truth, revealed by the river . . .

in the flow of life, so many people we
never would have known, but for you.
They lived, they loved, they fought, they cried;
they made their fair share of mistakes. They died.

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