My dad is from the small town of Winchester, Illinois, mentioned in the second line. I didn't know his hometown had ever been memorialized in a poem! I'm going to share it with him.
I enjoyed "Spoon River Anthology" in high school, even though I was more excited by poems written in meter and rhyme (by Frost and Keats among others) and more engaged by the dislocations of "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land." In retrospect, what has stayed with me is the group portrait, the collective narrative of a community. I've tried it (for a real community in the late 19th century) in prose, but not in poetry.
My dad is from the small town of Winchester, Illinois, mentioned in the second line. I didn't know his hometown had ever been memorialized in a poem! I'm going to share it with him.
His poem, Silence, is an all-time favorite of mine. Now I am inspired to read Spoon River Anthology. His stream of consciousness invites me in.
I am really enjoying and learning a lot from this Substack
What a great last line! Simplicity used to its fullest potential.
What a difference a capital L makes!
I enjoyed "Spoon River Anthology" in high school, even though I was more excited by poems written in meter and rhyme (by Frost and Keats among others) and more engaged by the dislocations of "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land." In retrospect, what has stayed with me is the group portrait, the collective narrative of a community. I've tried it (for a real community in the late 19th century) in prose, but not in poetry.