Rating: 
Summary: From an actor's point of view
Review: I realize that this book of short poetic stories is not used by many as an acting exercise, but I am an actor and was assigned to use this book to work on characters and deep monologues. I was astonished at the quality and depth contained in the writing. If you're an actor, looking for monologues or want to work on character work, get this book and perform each character within to the depth in which it was written.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, the honesty that bestows dead men's souls!
Review: I saw a theatrical production of The Spoon River Anthologies and fell in love with the prose. Although not every character is relatable, most have a message of truth and honesty that anyone can respect. Dark, but enlightening. It is well worth the read. What will be on your headstone when you pass?
Rating:
Summary: Everyone can find themselves (or someone they know) in SRA
Review: I use the Dover edition at Buckhannon-Upshur High School with my ninth grade students each spring. Even the kids who say they hate poetry end up liking this book. We read the poems as pieces of a puzzle, trying to put the people and their problems together. We only get about one third of the book done in class, but most of the students read more on their own time. There's a new one--students reading for pleasure!
Rating:
Summary: Great teaching tool
Review: I use this book in my English 8 classrooms to discuss character sketches and reading and understanding poetry. The students love that it's "kinda" dark and morbid. I like it because the students can focus on one person on "the hill" and not be worried with numerous characters and settings. I've used it in both 8th and 10th grade and the writing that comes from the reading of these poems is amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Great teaching tool
Review: I use this book in my English 8 classrooms to discuss character sketches and reading and understanding poetry. The students love that it's "kinda" dark and morbid. I like it because the students can focus on one person on "the hill" and not be worried with numerous characters and settings. I've used it in both 8th and 10th grade and the writing that comes from the reading of these poems is amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Voices of Humanity
Review: I was turned on to this book after hearing the latest Richard Buckner release "The Hill", in which the musician uses the Spoon River Anthology as the basis for his conceptual music. After listening to this wonderful disc, I was compelled to read the actual work by Edgar Lee Masters. What I found was a book that was written in 1915, but that brings to life the voices of humanity louder than anything I've read in recent years. This book is more poetry than literature, but the stories of the residents of Spoon River that are collected within the pages are stories that are not soon forgotten. This book has moved me more than anything else I've read in recent years, and I highly recommend that othes read this outstanding work of art.
Rating:
Summary: i first read this over ten years ago...
Review: i'm glad to see teachers still introducing this book to their high school students - i could kiss the one who gave it to me, if i knew where she was. like a lot of people, it actually introduced me to poetry i actually enjoyed, and taught me how to <i>really</i> read it. but despite all that, it remains a favorite of mine over ten years later because it's just plain brilliant. if my kids' high school teachers don't make them read it, i'll beat the teacher over the head with my ratty old paperback copy until the teacher gets the point.
Rating: 
Summary: BOOOOORING
Review: If you are looking for anything with any kind of story or plot at all, this is not the book for you. Simply an endless string of loosely related paragraphs. If you want a book that you cant put down, look elsewhere. This may be more appropriate in a literature class, but definitely not for a good-time-read.
Rating: 
Summary: Stirring epitaphs? No; dead boring.
Review: If you get an edition, such as "Signet Classic", that includes The Spooniad and the Epilogue, then you will have three bad works of poetry to wade through, the last two blessedly short.
The idea is a good one; a series of monologues from dead former townspeople, touching the major incidents of their lives, many of them connected, sometimes in surprising ways. But Masters is just not a good enough poet. He attempts blank verse monologues in the style of Robert Frost (as in North of Boston) but succeeds only in demonstrating how difficult a form it is and how it takes the brilliance of someone like Frost to pull it off. I can see that a few of them are worthwhile and would themselves make good anthology pieces, but mostly they are simply second rate prose poems of no significance.
In my review of Winesburg, Ohio I compared Sherwood Anderson unfavorably with Masters, saying that he lacked Masters' humanity. But - like most people, I suspect - I had only read selections from Spoon River. Now that I have paddled the length of it, I can tell you it is meandering, flows very slowly, and contains very little life.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading! Rates #1 in "Spoon River Illinois"
Review: Ilive in Spoon River (Lewistown Illinois) Masters came from here, and he covered human nature at its worst and best after he left here. The book has been at the top of students and in theatres since it was published' I am the historian here in Lewistown Ill. and the characters are as alive today as they were then! It is 'must' reading for all literature lovers, American or English styles. Masters left here in 1894,went to Chicago and New York City and left his mark that can never be erased from the annals of literature. He graduated here from Lewistown High school in 1886, and practised law here. However "Spoon River Anthology" lives on here in the 'valley of the 'unmythical' Spoon River! The book is real, the town is real, and the River is real! In 1925 Masters told in an article review on his "Genesis of Spoon River"....."If there was ever a town called Spoon River" IT IS Lewistown, Illinois!" Read the book, then visit the town in Central Illinois during the autumn Spoon River Scenic Drive Festival Days! Come See the real Spoon River, and see a part of what Masters saw! Human Nature - and nature itself!
| 
