Over 200 characters are described in the free-verse graveyard poems that Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) composed for his 1916 “Spoon River Anthology” — and most of them are grim accounts of a hardscrabble life. The Midwest, in Master’s fictionalized telling of legends and gossip from generations along the Spoon River in Illinois, was a place of small but fiercely held passions, quiet crimes, and life scraped by. Except for a few — notably Lucinda Matlock. From the grave, she looks back on her long life and wonders how anyone can complain about existence: “What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, / Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?” And in the famous conclusion, she warns, “Degenerate sons and daughters, / Life is too strong for you — / It takes life to love Life.”