Blog #12 - Spoon River Anthology

Spoon River Anthology is not just one narrative or one poem, but in fact a collection of poems. The poems are about people that live in a small Midwestern town. It is really interesting because sometimes, their stories or how they are feeling overlap with each other. So you might hear a persons name in one poem, and then three poems later you might be reading a poem that also includes that person or it is in fact them who wrote it. I love books like that, so I thought that was really interesting and creative. Anyway, I read the poem called "The Hill." This one is about how everyone has their own way of passing away or dying. I think that it was a pretty depressing poem, but it is only one poem out of the whole book. Anyway, it is about death. For example, the poem says, "Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith,The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, The happy one?-All, all, are sleeping on the hill. One died in shameful child-birth,One of a thwarted love,
One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire,One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag-All, all, are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill." (Masters).
I think that this can maybe relate to Emerson or Thoreau a little bit. I think it might relate because I feel like in this poem, the author talks about death so carelessly, but I think that Thoreau was a little more thoughtful when it came to stuff like that. I also know that when Emerson's wife had passed away, he was crushed. I think that like Thoreau, he was also a little more thoughtful when it came to death. He did not consider her to be "just sleeping on a hill", he was very sad. That is how I think it may relate.


"Spoon River Anthology." Umasd.schoolwires.com/.../lib/.../Masters_(Spoon_River).doc. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.

"Marriage | Emerson - Living Legacy." Harvard Square Library. Web. 01 Mar. 2012.