Thoughts of Spoon River

Despite his name, Fletcher McGee is no straight arrow. Whatever kind of man Fletcher might have been before his wife, Ollie McGee , took his “life by hours’, when we encounter him in his epitaph, he is a broken man – the arrow has snapped. Where Hod Putt is the very epitome of his name, Fletcher McGee is a weak man who has allowed life to defeat him. Unfortunately, we know nothing of what other factors may have beaten down this rather pathetic figure, for Edgar Lee Masters gives no back-story, either here or in the previous poem ‘spoken’ by Fletcher’s wife. This dearth of detail serves two purposes – one localized, the other universal – one microscopic, the other macroscopic. Fletcher and Ollie McGee are consumed by their hatred; their whole world has become little more than the causing and suffering of mutual pain. As they lie in their graves, wherein one would imagine they should be beyond the petty cares of life, yet they remain fixated on each other - on who did what, on who ...

We cannot but take notice when an Anthology of ‘spoken’ epitaphs opens, after the introductory first poem, with the words, “Here I lie…”. These words must cause us to ponder the veracity of what we are about to ‘hear’. Inevitably, because the poems are spoken from each individual’s point of view, there is bound to be discrepancies, contradictions and, possibly, flat-out-lies. Hod Putt appears to be saying something straightforwardly simple: “Here I am in my grave, next to that of Old Bill Pierol.” As we read the poem, however, we begin to realise the irony implies things are not quite so simple as we first thought. Notice, for instance, that Hod doesn’t actually place himself in a grave. Old Bill Piersol is in a grave and Hod tells us he lies close by. It is evident that Hod is indeed in his grave, though he refuses to be quite so specific about his own location. It is easier for Hod to acknowledge Old Bill Piersol’s situation than his own. Despite his matter-of-fact relating of ...