Thoughts of Spoon River

I wonder just how we’re supposed to feel about Chase Henry? He was the “town drunkard” and seemingly quite proud of his place in the civic structure of Spoon River. And hugely tickled by his getting one over the “prudent and pious souls” symbolised here by the Catholic Church. How are we to feel about Chase Henry? To a certain extent, at least, we can’t help but feel a little bit tickled right along with him. To admit to a certain guilty pleasure at Chase’s one-upping the Catholic Church is one thing, to draw some deep philosophical meaning out of the circumstances is another. That Chase Henry would wish his burial next to the banker and his wife to have significance is only natural in a man who lived as a wastrel. This being Spoon River, however, we at least need to consider the real lesson to be learned. It could be, of course, as simple as the quartet of poems just encountered, previous to this one - a character lying in the womb of the earth, pointing a bony finger, either at...

If we have read the three previous poems carefully and recognised their unity of purpose, there should be nothing unexpected in this ninth epitaph of Constance Hately - not even the twist of the final two lines. As any good mini-series should, the last three poems have been building to this dramatic climax. Indeed, we can say that this poem gets to the very heart of the whole anthology. Even this early in the anthology, it is good to finally have a confession of sin from a figure of some standing in the Spoon River community; one who was generally praised for her self-sacrifice by her neighbours. It is a timely confession, for we might be in danger of misreading the previous poems without it. It lends support to the voices of Cassius Hueffer, Serepta Morgan and Amanda Barker, letting us know that they are not mere moaners, bewailing their lot from beyond the grave. What these epitaphs have in common is the nature of the community’s consistent misjudgement of what is to be val...