April 1st marks the beginning of National Poetry Month. As I confessed in our last podcast, I have something of a poetry phobia.

One work of poetry that I do love, however, is Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. I think I might have been introduced to one of the pieces in a high school English class, but I went on to purchase my own copy of the book and read it in its entirety several times during high school and college.

First published in 1915, Spoon River Anthology is a collection of narratives told from the grave. The now-dead residents of the fictional mid-western town of Spoon River tell us of their tragic lives, their loves, their defeats, their scandals and secrets.

Several years ago, I was stunned to discover an album by Richard Buckner called The Hill. The album is Buckner’s music set to poems from Spoon River anthology. It adds a haunting element to the work, and his spare compositions and his raspy voice convey the spirit of the individual poems in a way that makes them unforgettable.

Track 6 of the album, Julia Miller, (click the link for a sample) is quiet and beautiful, until you absorb the lyrics:

WE quarreled that morning,
For he was sixty--five, and I was thirty,
And I was nervous and heavy with the child
Whose birth I dreaded.
I thought over the last letter written me
By that estranged young soul
Whose betrayal of me I had concealed
By marrying the old man.
Then I took morphine and sat down to read.
Across the blackness that came over my eyes
I see the flickering light of these words even now:
"And Jesus said unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt
Be with me in paradise."

(from Spoon River Anthology – definitive online edition)

Buckner gives Johnnie Sayre a harder arrangement, and one that channels the sound of the train that is at the heart of the poem:

FATHER, thou canst never know
The anguish that smote my heart
For my disobedience, the moment I felt
The remorseless wheel of the engine
Sink into the crying flesh of my leg.
As they carried me to the home of widow Morris
I could see the school-house in the valley
To which I played truant to steal rides upon the trains.
I prayed to live until I could ask your forgiveness--
And then your tears, your broken words of comfort!
From the solace of that hour I have gained infinite happiness.
Thou wert wise to chisel for me:
"Taken from the evil to come."

For more of the music, check out The Hill at Merge Records, where you can stream the entire album for free for a limited time (on the Merge album site, click on the link under the album art that says ‘preview this release’).

And if you haven’t read Spoon River Anthology, or if you’ve forgotten about it until now, I do urge you to pick it up — especially if you are not sure about your own relationship to poetry. You can read it online, or pick up one of the many editions that exist at various prices. It’s powerful, but easy to understand at many levels.