La Spoon River Anthology di Edgar Lee Masters è stata pubblicata per la prima volta nel 1915, dalla McMillan di New York. In Italia da Einaudi, nel 1943, tradotta da Fernanda Pivano; e poi da Newton Compton, 1974 (trad. Letizia Ciotti Miller); Rizzoli, 1986 (trad. Alberto Rossatti); Mondadori, 1987 (trad. Antonio Porta); Piemme, 1996 (trad. Luciano Paglialunga); Deferrari, 1997 (trad. Benito Poggio); Giunti Demetra, 2001/2015 (trad. Alessandro Quattrone); Mondadori, 2016 (trad. Luigi Ballerini).
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Grant Wood, Appraisal, 1931. |
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Grant Wood, Woman with plants, 1929. |
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| Grant Wood, Breaking the Prairie Sod (murale), 1935-1937. |
Le versioni originali
Mrs. Kessler
Mr. Kessler, you know, was in the army,
And he drew six dollars a month as a pension,
And stood on the corner talking politics,
Or sat at home reading Grant’s Memoirs;
And I supported the family by washing,
Learning the secrets of all the people
From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts.
For things that are new grow old at length,
They’re replaced with better or none at all:
People are prospering or falling back.
And rents and patches widen with time;
No thread or needle can pace decay,
And there are stains that baffle soap,
And there are colors that run in spite of you,
Blamed though you are for spoiling a dress.
Handkerchiefs, napery, have their secrets—
The laundress, Life, knows all about it.
And I, who went to all the funerals
Held in Spoon River, swear I never
Saw a dead face without thinking it looked
Like something washed and ironed.
Herbert Marshall
All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me
Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness
Of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights
Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.
You really grew to hate me for love of me,
Because I was your soul’s happiness,
Formed and tempered
To solve your life for you, and would not.
But you were my misery. If you had been
My happiness would I not have clung to you?
This is life’s sorrow:
That one can be happy only where two are;
And that our hearts are drawn to stars
Which want us not.
George Gray
I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me–
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire –
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
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Thomas Hart Benton, The Source of Country Music, 1975. |
