The Poet Speaks; Spoon River Anthology

And Spoon River anthology a poet at girlie masters recreates the lives of people buried in the cemetery of a small Illinois town. The time is over a hundred years ago. Join us now as we walk through that summit today and listen to these voices from the past. Where are Ella Kate Maggie Lizzie and Edith the tender heart. The simple so the proud. Oh I see. One guy didn't change for childbirth. One of the thwarted loved one at the hands of a group in a brothel. One of a broken pride in the search for heart's desire. Oh yes ME ME ME ME. See you. Here in a corner of the cemetery on the Hill is the grave of a boy who was born to a boy who guessed that

someday men would walk on the moon. Alfonzo Churchill. They laughed at me as Professor moon as a boy in Spoon River. Born with the thirst of knowing about the stars they jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains and the thrilling heat and cold and the ebb and valleys by silver peaks and Spica quadrillions of miles away and the littleness of man. But now that my grave is honored friends let it not be because I taught the lore of the stars and Knox College but rather for this that through the stars I preached the greatness of man who is nonetheless a part of the scheme of things for the distance of speaker or the spiral nebulae I nor any the less a part of the question of what the trama means. Two men live here side by side on the Hill who are related by one of the strongest of all bonds.

The first is the tower marshal. The Prohibitionists made me town marshal in the saloons were voted out because when I was a drinking man before I joined the church I killed a suite at the sawmill near Maple Grove and they wanted a terrible green writers. Strong Courageous and hater of saloons and drinkers to keep law and order in the village and they presented me with a loaded cane with which your eyes struck Jack McGuire before he drew the gun with which he killed me. The Prohibitionists spent their money in vain to hang him for in a dream I appeared to one of the twelve jurymen and told him the whole secret story. Fourteen years are enough for killing me and the other the man who killed him. Jack McGuire. They were lynched me. Had I not been secretly hurried away to the jail of Peoria.

And yet I was going peacefully home carrying my jug. Little drunk when Logan the marshal halted me called me a drunken hound and shook me and when I cursed him for it struck me with that prohibition loaded cane. Well this before I shot him. They would have hanged me except for this. My lawyer Kinsey Keene was helping to land old Thomas Rhodes for wrecking the bank and the judge was a friend of its and wanted him to escape. And Kinsey offered to quit on roads for fourteen years for me and the bargain was made by time and learn to read and write. Here are two graves separated only by a narrow path of people whose lives touched briefly to the hurt of both on this side and a clue.

Oh over and over they used to ask me while buying the wine of the beer in Peoria first and later in Chicago then New York wherever I lived how I happened to lead the life and what was the start of it. Well I told him a silk dress and a promise of marriage from a rich man. He was Lucius Atherton but that was not really it at all. Suppose a boy steals an apple from the tray at the grocery store and they all begin to call him a thief. The minister the editor judge and all the people. A thief a thief a thief whatever and he can't get work and he can't get bread without stealing it. Why the boy will steal. It's the way people regard the theft of the apple that makes the boy what he is and on the other side the man who felt cheated by life.

Often her crew to the gate refused me the parting kiss saying we should be engaged before that and just with a distant clasp of the hand she begged me goodnight as I brought her home from the skating rink for the revival. No sooner did my departing footsteps die away than Lucius Atherton. So I learned when I went to Peoria store window or took her riding behind a spanking team of bays into the country. The shock of it made me settle down and I put all the money I got from my father's estate into the canning factory to get the job of head accountant. Lost it all. And then I knew I was one of life's fools whom only death would treat as the equal of other men making me feel like a man. The headstones don't reveal all. The women lying here came here by her own hand. Pauline Barrett.

The shadow of a woman after the surgeon's knife and almost a year to creep back into strength till the dawn of our wedding descend found me my seeming self again. We walk through the forest together by a path of soundless Moss and her but I could not look into your eyes and you could not look in my eyes for such sorrow was ours. The beginning of gray in your hair and I. But a shell of myself. And what did we talk of sky and water. Anything most to hide our thoughts and then your gift of wild roses sat on the table to graced our dinner.

How bravely you struggled to imagine and live a remembered rapture. And then my spirit drooped as the night came on and you left me alone in my room for a while as you did when I was a bride. And I looked in the mirror and something said one should be dead when one is half dead. Life will ever cheat. Love. I get it. Looking in the mirror. Have you just regret the life of this woman. The headstone.

Smith. Returned from the sermon. For him in my life with I poisoned it and it became hatred. Do we have a cake. So unless she was sure. Under this headstone lies a man convinced he was always right.

Reverend let me Whitely. I preached for hours and so I conducted a revival and back yet to shine brighter in the memory and nonuse treasured by her all our lives. The problem devolves had kept the great grown up man. And women. I pay them all the credit for the village. No in the bliss family plot is the grave of a woman who would disagree. Mrs. Charles bliss Reverend Wiley advised me

not to divorce him for the sake of the children. And Judge Summers advised him the same. So we stuck to the end of the path. But two of the children thought he was right. Two of the children thought I was right and the two who sided with him blamed me and the two who sided with me blamed him. And they grieved for the one they sided with with the guilt of judging and tortured in Soul because they could not in my equally him and me. Now every gardener knows that plants grown in cellars or under stones are twisted and yellow and weak and no mother would let her baby suck diseased milk from her breast. Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of when there is no sunlight but only twilight. No one but only innocent creatures and judges. For some reason this grave never received a headstone.

But we know it belongs to judge summers. How does it happen. Tell me that I who was most erudite of lawyers who knew Blackstone and Koch almost by heart. Who made the greatest speech the courthouse ever heard and wrote a brief that won the praise of Justice breeze. How does it happen. Tell me that I lie here unmarked forgotten. Well Chase Henry the town drunkard has a marble block topped by an urn. Where in nature in a mood ironical has sown flowering wheat. Look at the sorry state of this grave by the edge of the river. Yet the man under this toppling headstone was very important in life and a job to be able to see every side of every question. To be

on every side to be everything to be nothing to pervert truth to ride it for a purpose. To use great feelings and passions of the human family based designs for cunning and to wear a mask like the Greek actors. Your eight page paper behind which you huddle bawling through the megaphone of big type this is eye of a giant. By Also living the life of a sneak thief poisoned with the anonymous words of your kind destined soul to scratch dirt over scandal for money and eggs you made to the winds for revenge or to sell papers crushing reputations all bodies if need be to win at any cost save your own life to glory in the money or power ditching civilisation as a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track and derailed the express train to be an editor.

As I was. Then to lie here close by the river over the place where the sewage flows from the village and the empty cans and garbage are dumped and abortions are hidden. There's no headstone but there's something great with the simple Marco reads. Daisy Fraser did you ever hear of Ed. giving to the public treasury any of the money he received for supporting candidates for office or writing up that canning factory to get people to invest. 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. P. Reverend Sibley give any part

of their salary earned by keeping still or speaking out as the leaders advised them to do to the building of the waterworks. But Daisy Fraser who always passed along the streets through rows of nods and smiles and coughs and words such as. There she goes. Never was taken before justice are now without country taking ten dollars and costs to other schools for. Poor Daisy. The man she finally stepped out with was the maker of coffins. Jettison holy there would be a knock at the door and I would arise admit it and go to the shop where belated travelers would hear me hammering supposed crew boards and tacking Satam

and I wondered who would go with me to the distant land our names the theme football in the same week for us to always go together. CHACE Henry was paired with Jonathan summons Willie Metcalf and editor Hammond with prenticed and when he prayed to live longer than editor Wheaton and Thomas Rhodes with we don't MacFarlane and Emily sparks with Barry Holden and Oscar Hummel with Davis Matlock and edited with fiddler charm and faith method me with Dorcas custom. It was solemn last man and stepped on with Daisy Frazier placed this headstone in genuine grief.

She was Julia Miller. We quarrelled that morning for he was 65 and I was 30 and I was heavy with a child whose birth I dreaded. I thought over the last letter written by that a string whose betrayal of me I had concealed by marrying the old man. Then I took morphine and sat down to read. Across the blackness that came over my eyes I see the flickering light of these words even now. Jesus said unto him. Verily I say unto thee. Today shalt be with me. In. Paradise.

None of his children spoiled came they put up this impressive. He was Al but a hard one because his children were failures. And I know of a fate more trying than that it is to be a failure of your children the successes I raised a brood of eagles who flew away at last leaving me abandoned. Then with the ambition to prefix honorable my name and thus to win my children's admiration I ran for county superintendent of schools spending my accumulations to win and lost. That my daughter received first prize in Paris for her picture entitled the mill. It was the water mill before steam the feeling that

I was not worthy of her finished me. And here is the opposite side of this coin. A man who did away with himself because his children were failures. Jonas Keane. Why did Albert shirting kill him self trying to be county superintendent of schools. Blessed as he was with the means of life and wonderful children bringing him honorary was 60. If even one of my boys could have run a newsstand or one of my girls could have married a decent man. I should not have walked in the rain and jumped into bed with clothes refusing medical aid. Tragedy stole some of the quiet houses of Spoon River. This woman died in childbirth. Her baby with her. She was Elizabeth Childers.

My Just dust with my dust child who died as you enter the world with my dad breath though you tried so hard with a heart to beat when you lived with me and stopped when you left me for life. It is well my child for you never travel way that begins with school days when little tears that fall on the crooked letters and the earliest when a little mate leaves you alone for another and sickness and the face of fear by the bad. The death of a father or mother or shame for them to take the maiden sorrow of school days ended and I know that makes you drink from the cup of blub for you know its poisoned Flower Face have been lifted. Just cry

blood. Purify for it makes no matter its blood the blood. And then your children. What might they be and your child. Child death is better than life. By itself under this is the gray. Never found what she wanted in life. Maybe the red blossoms and green leaves are drooping. Beautiful geranium. But you do not ask for water. You cannot speak. You do not need to speak. Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst. Yet they do not bring water. They pass on saying the geranium. And I. Who had happiness to share and to share

your happiness and your love with. Voiceless from Chase to ask you for love. And saw me perish before you like this geranium which someone has planted over me. Here in the midst of some impressive funerary is a simple headstone that reads chase and really did life I would say that Tao drunkard where died died the priest then died. Me burial in the holy

which redounded to my good fortune. For the brightest by this lot and buried by by the way here close to the grave over the bank. Carla and his wife pretty shell out OK I know which you throwed PAJA shadow of the cross currents. It's a life way to bring out a juror that dad who lives there. Shay. Spiritual Brother of the town good was this man Harry Carey. You never marveled dullards of Henry voted against the

saloons to revenge himself for being shot off. But none of you was keen enough to follow my steps or trace me home as Chase's spiritual brother. Do you remember when I fought the bank in the court house ring for pocketing the interest on public funds. And when I thought our leading citizens were making the poor the packhorses of the taxes. And when I fought the waterworks for stealing streets and raising rates and when I fought the businessman who fought me in these fights. Then do you remember. Staggering up from the wreck of defeat and the wreck of a ruined career I slipped from my cloak my last ideal hidden from his Until then I could cherish us and smote the bank and the waterworks and the businessman with prohibition and made to pay the cost of the fight that I had lost. Carpets for the village found herself something else.

Fallen. I was the widow Weaver of carpet for the village and I pity you. Still it's a life singing to the shuttle and lovingly watching the work of your hands. If you reach the day of hate of terror. True. Cloth of life is a passion hidden under the law of passion you never see and you we live high hearted singing you God the threads of love and friendship and love. After I can see you were stripped of the passions and hate of it.

This is the grave of a mystic who watched life from the sidelines. Her headstone reads Edith Conant. Stand about this place we the memories and shade our eyes because we dread to read. June 17 1884 aged twenty one years and three days. And all things are changed and we we the memories stand here for ourselves alone. For no I access no. Why we are here. Your husband is dead. Your sister lives far away. Your father is bent with age. Yes forgotten you. He scarcely leaves the house and no one remembers your exquisite face. Your lyric voice how you sang even on the morning you were stricken with piercing

sweetness with thrilling sorrow. Before the advent of the child which died with you it is forgotten save by. Memories. Who are forgotten by the world. All is changed save the river and the Hill even though they are changed. You have been listening to a dramatic presentation taken from Ed Gurley masters Spoon River anthology. The cast included Bill cavernous Katherine Huntington Norma Farber Jean Harper Joan Sullivan Bob Bailey and Rec Houser. Then I write a script was written by

Jean Harper. The part of the now writer was played by Edward Feldman who also directed the production. This program was produced by Christopher Ward in the studios of WGBH Boston with technical direction by Nathaniel Johnson. This is NPR National Public Radio.