As a boy, Theodore, you sat for l… On the shore of the turbid Spoon With deep-set eye staring at the d… Waiting for him to appear, pushing… First his waving antennae, like st…

I have known the silence of the st… And the silence of the city when i… And the silence of a man and a mai… And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the roo…

I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in… But standing for the rights of pro… A regular church attendant, Sometimes appearing in your town m…

It matters not what place he drew At first life’s mortal breath, Some say it was in Bethlehem, And some in Nazareth. But shame and sorrow were his lot

I grew spiritually fat living off… If I saw a soul that was strong I wounded its pride and devoured i… The shelters of friendship knew my… For where I could steal a friend…

When I went to the city, Mary Mc… I meant to return for you, yes I… But Laura, my landlady’s daughter… Stole into my life somehow, and wo… Then after some years whom should…

Suppose you stood just five feet t… And had worked your way as a groce… Studying law by candle light Until you became an attorney at la… And then suppose through your dili…

I am Minerva, the village poetess… Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoo… For my heavy body, cock-eye, and r… And all the more when “Butch” Wel… Captured me after a brutal hunt.

I sat on the bank above Bernadott… And dropped crumbs in the water, Just to see the minnows bump each… Until the strongest got the prize. Or I went to my little pasture,

They told me I had three months t… So I crept to Bernadotte, And sat by the mill for hours and… Where the gathered waters deeply m… Seemed not to move:

Do the boys and girls still go to… For cider, after school, in late… Or gather hazel nuts among the thi… On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the… For many times with the laughing g…

This is Darrow, Inadequately scrawled, with his yo… And his drawl, and his infinite pa… And his sadness, and kindness, And his artist sense that drives h…

How does it happen, tell me, That I who was the most erudite o… Who knew Blackstone and Coke Almost by heart, who made the grea… The court-house ever heard, and wr…

I inherited forty acres from my F… And, by working my wife, my two so… From dawn to dusk, I acquired A thousand acres. But not content… Wishing to own two thousand acres,

I was a gun-smith in Odessa. One night the police broke in the… Where a group of us were reading… And seized our books and arrested… But I escaped and came to New Yo…