Lucinda Matlock
Edgar Lee Masters
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
5 And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
10 I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell
And many a flower and medicinal weed—
15 Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent, and drooping hopes?
20 Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.
Making Meanings
First Thoughts
1. What do you think of this old woman’s final words?
Shaping Interpretations
2. What adjectives would you choose to describe Matlock’s tone in lines 1–17? What different adjectives best describe her tone in lines 18–22?
3. Identify the details in the text that describe the hardships Matlock has endured. Then, pick out the details that depict her joys and pleasures. How would you describe Lucinda’s life?
4. What two meanings does the word life have in “It takes life to love Life”—the last line of the poem? Why do you suppose the second Life is capitalized?
5. How do you think Masters feels about his outspoken Lucinda?
6. In line 20, what does the word degenerate mean? By calling her neighbors “degenerate,” what
feelings about them does Lucinda reveal?
7. What kinds of Lucindas do you know in life today? What do you admire about these people? Do you have other feelings about them too?
Challenging the Text
8. How fair is it for Lucinda Matlock to insist that other people deal with sorrow, weariness, anger, and depression the way she has dealt with them in her own life?
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