Spoon River Anthology

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters was one of the biggest influences for my Crucifixion monologue set. After posting the monologues on here, I had the urge to re-read the book that helped me get the idea for the format of writing. It's setting is a graveyard. To quote the introduction in this version "from their graves they speak their own epitaphs, discovering and confessing the real motivations of their lives; they reveal the secret steps that stumbled them to failure, or raised them to illusionary triumphs while alive; it is as if the darkness of the grave granted them revelatory eyes for a recognition of their own souls."
I recommend this book but with a warning that some of the monologues are really intense/possibly graphic.


Here are some of my favorites.

George Gray

I have studied many times

The marble which was chiseled for me-

A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.

In truth it pictures not my destination

But my life.

For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;

Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;

Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.

Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.

And now I know that we must lift the sail

And catch the winds of destiny

Wherever they drive the boat.

To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,

But life without meaning is torture

Of restlessness and vague desire-

It is a boat of longing for the sea and yet afraid.

"Ace" Shaw

I never saw any difference

Between playing cards for money

And selling real estate,

Practicing law, banking, or anything else.

For everything is chance.

Nevertheless

Seest thou a man diligent in business?

He shall stand before Kings!

Fiddler Jones

The earth keeps some vibration going

There in your heart, and that is you.

And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.

What do you see, a harvest of clover?

Or a meadow to walk through to the river?

The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands

For beeves hereafter ready for market;

Or else you hear the rustle of skirts

Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.

To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust

Or whilrling leaves meant ruinous drouth;

They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy

Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor."

How could I till my 40 acres

Not to speak of getting more,

With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos

Stirred in my brain by crows and robins

And the creak of a wind-mill - only these?

And I never started to a plow in my life

That some one did not top in the road 

And take me away to a dance or picnic.

I ended up with 40 acres;

I ended up with a broken fiddle-

And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,

And not a single regret.

Louise Smith

Herbert broke our engagement of eight years

When Annabelle returned to the village

From the Seminary, ah me!

If I had let my love for him alone

It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow-

Who knows?-filling my life with healing fragrance.

But I tortured it, I poisoned it,

I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred-

Deadly ivy instead of clematis.

And my soul fell from its support,

Its tendrils tangled in decay.

Do not let the will play gardener to your soul

Unless you are sure

It is wiser than your soul's nature.

Herbert Marshall

All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me

Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness

Of spirit and contempt of your soul's rights

Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.

You really grew to hate me for love of me,

Because I was your soul's happiness,

Formed and tempered

To solve your life for you, and would not.

But you were my misery. If you had been

My happiness would I not have clung to you?

This is life's sorrow:

That one can be happy only where two are;

And that our hearts are drawn to stars

Which want us not.

Griffy the Cooper

The Cooper should know about tubs.

But I learned about life as well,

And you who loiter around these graves

Think you know life.

You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,

In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.

You cannot lift yourself to its rim

And see the outer world of things,

And at the same time see yourself.

You are submerged in the tub of yourself-

Taboos and rules and appearances,

Are the staves of your tub.

Break them and dispel the witchcraft

Of thinking your tub is life!

And that you know life!

William and Emily

There is something about Death

Like love itself!

If with some one with whom you have known passion,

And the flow of youthful love,

You also, after years of life

Together, feel the sinking of the fire,

And thus fade away together,

Gradually, faintly, delicately,

As it were in each other's arms,

Passing from the familiar room-

That is a power of unison between souls

Like love itself!