Spoon River Anthology Summary

In the Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters the first poem is about Minerva the poetess she was made fun of and treated like an animal. She was kidnapped by Butch Weldy and left for dead. At the end she reveals that all she wants is for her poetry to be remembered. She takes herself seriously as a poetess. She hopes that people will remember her as a poetess and not just the fat woman in town killed by Butch.

Butch thought that he was safe because he found religion, a god a figure to guide him through all his troubles.When he changed his life he was given a job to serve as a factory worker dealing with gasoline and other dangerous items. He is attacked by two other prisoners and the judge gave him no pity he got no money and was just left there like that a blind crippled man. He

He learns that sometimes even though you have religion and faith on your side you are still human.Bullets still kill people and people can die even though they have a god.he was just trying to solve a dispute in a friendly and kind way and he ends up getting trapped and almost killed.

The poet shows that the speaker has a dark and serious mind.The speaker mentions how he beat the case of the crippled the widow and the orphan.He says that rats ate his heart and a snake made a nest in his skull.This means that his morals were bent he was a sinner in his life.He lived his own way and now he is going to be punished for it. He is showing that whatever you do in life can be punished either when you are living or when you are dead.

We know that he was a doctor and he was living a happy life.He speaks about Minerva Jones in this poem. He implies that he "helped" Minerva which can mean a lot of different things.Minerva dies when she was with him making people think he killed her.This shows that no matter how nice you are and how many good deeds you do,you can still be made into the