Spoon River Anthology…book review

by Richard Subber | Oct 8, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry, Reviews of other poets

…or grab a flashlight…

Book review:

Spoon River Anthology

by Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950)

New York: The Macmillan Company, c1914-1944, publ. 1967

306 pages

The reputation of Spoon River Anthology is indisputable.

The reality is a matter for each reader.

For my taste, this is an exotic but deadened miscellany that tirelessly revisits a few themes. I won’t say there’s no inspiration, but you need a miner’s headlamp to find it here and there.

Many of the folks who are pushing up daisies near the Spoon River just weren’t really terribly interesting people when they were alive.

* * * * * *

Book review: The Comanche Empire

the other story of the American West…

by Pekka Hämäläinen

click here

–

Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”