Edgar Lee Masters’ “Serepta Mason” and “Amanda Barker” are poems #7 and #8 respectively in his Spoon River Anthology. Each decedent offers a short and sweet assessment of her situation.
“Serepta Mason”
Serepta’s complaint is that the “fools” “in the village” were never able to see her good side. But she begins by declaring that she might have been a well-rounded, fully developed personality if she had not been “stunted” by the nastiness of the people in her town.
She metaphorically likens her growth to a flower, “my life’s blossom,” which “might have bloomed on all sides.” But because of the “bitter wind” “her petals” were kept from developing fully, and that “stunted” side of her was all that the villagers saw.
Therefore, as the other ghosts from the Spoon River cemetery do, she raises her “voice of protest.” She enlightens the villagers that she did, in fact, have a “flowering side,” but they never saw it. She foists all the blame on the villagers, not considering her own share of blame that might be part of the equation.
Serepta concludes her accusation with a rather grandiose philosophical attempt to convince herself that she is, in fact, accurate in her assessment: she calls the “living ones” “fools” because they “do not know the ways of the wind / And the unseen forces / That govern the processes of life.” The recurrence of the metaphor “wind” implies that she is castigating the townies for being gossip-mongers.
“Amanda Barker”
Unlike Serepta who waxes poetic and philosophical with metaphoric comparison and aphoristic critique, Amanda speaks her mind very plainly and bluntly. Amanda was married to Henry, and Henry knew that Amanda could not bear children; he knew that attempting to do so would kill her.
But Henry impregnated Amanda despite that deadly knowledge, and sure enough, Amanda died young: “In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.”
Amanda then speaks directly to the person who might be viewing her tombstone, calling that person “Traveler.” She reports that people in her town thought her husband loved her as a husband should love a wife. But she unequivocally announces that he hated her and deliberately killed her out of that hatred.
Commentary
Serepta’s complaint implies that she was damaged and her growth stunted by town gossip, signified by “wind”: “a bitter wind which stunted my petals” and “Who do not know the ways of the wind.” Amanda’s main focus in on having returned to “dust” before having lived her life: “I entered the portals of dust” and “I proclaim from the dust / That he slew me to gratify his hatred.”
Source
- Edgar Lee Masters, "Serepta Mason" and "Amanada Marker," Spoon River Anthology, bartleby.com.
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
