Spoon River Anthology is a collection of epitaphs for residents of a small American town in the form of short poems. Amelia Garrick begins her poem by remarking on the obscurity of her burial place, “close to a stunted rose bush.” Even in death, Amelia is a complete contrast to the unnamed addressee, “a leader in New York.” The other woman has left Spoon River to marry “a noted millionaire” and is now a socialite who appears to have everything, though Amelia admits that perhaps “the mirage of distance” plays its part in making her life appear so perfect. The contrast between the two women is emphasized by repetition and parallelism:
You have succeeded, I have failed
You are alive, I am dead.
Although the poem is eighteen lines long, it has the same structure as and similar proportions to a sonnet. The sestet begins with a turn:
Yet...
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I know that I vanquished your spirit;
The brilliant, beautiful doyenne of Manhattan society remains, according to the speaker, under her thrall, remaining subject to “the unconquerable power over you.” The nature of this power is left deliberately vague. Perhaps the other woman hero-worshiped and adored Amelia, or perhaps Amelia bullied her. Perhaps there was some rivalry in love. There is an irony in this assertion of dominance, however. While Amelia claims to have vanquished the unnamed woman, all we know about Amelia is her obscurity in relation to the brilliance of the New York socialite who remains alive after her death.
To best understand "Amelia Garrick," one must first understand its context. Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology is a collection of free verse poems. Each poem serves as an epitaph for a deceased individual in the fictional town of Spoon River, which in turn is based on the real town of Spoon River. Through these epitaphs, Masters aims to communicate the spirit of the archetypal American small-town community. By using the structure of epitaph to communicate community spirit, he simultaneously describes how the living are defined by the dead and how mortality colors human existence and the way we understand ourselves. More specifically, in "Amelia Garrick," Edgar Lee Masters asks us to redefine success to take into consideration the impact of mortality on our sense of accomplishment.
Competition and, perhaps more importantly, victory come in many forms. If among two individuals in competition, one outlives the other and in great splendor, that is (on a superficial level) a form of victory on the part of the living. In "Amelia Garrick," while the unnamed victor is rich and powerful, the deceased Amelia Garrick lies,
In a forgotten place near the fence
Where the thickets from Siever's woods
Have crept over, growing sparsely.
Essentially, Amelia Garrick is in the opposite state. That her burial plot is unattended to suggests that she has been forgotten entirely. The reference to "Siever's Woods," a location name only familiar to locals, reiterates that while Garrick's competitor moved away, Amelia Garrick never left their shared hometown, further denoting failure.
However, the final lines upend this characterization and invite the reader to evaluate how they measure success. Masters surprises the reader, writing,
In the brilliant world where you move,
I am really the unconquerable power over your life
That robs it of complete triumph.
As rich and powerful as Amelia Garrick's competitor becomes, she cannot truly win. How can one truly consider oneself triumphant, Masters encourages the reader to ask, when our competition died before starting? This wealthy woman will always have the memory of an Amelia Garrick who might have gone further—might have become something else. That haunting memory, that potential, is triumphant where in life Amelia Garrick was not.
If the back-story of "Amelia Garrick" is unknown, we can still extrapolate something from the general tone and meaning of the soliloquies that make up the Spoon River Anthology.
The Spoon River dead are mostly people who have outwardly been failures, or have been forgotten in spite of the significance they may have had in life. Probably the best example of this pattern among the characters is Ann Rutledge, the woman who was Abraham Lincoln's first love. Ann sees herself as having been the primal force or inspiration behind Lincoln, though their love did not continue:
Wedded to him not through union, but through separation.
Bloom forever, O Republic,
From the dust of my bosom!
The story Amelia Garrick tells is similar to that of Ann Rutledge. She alludes to a rivalry with a woman who is now the wife of a famous man, a millionaire, and asserts that she vanquished the woman's spirit. In spite of Amelia's death and thus, her failure to become the rich man's wife, Amelia sees herself as somehow having achieved victory over the other woman. The implication, arguably, is that Amelia was the one whom the man really loved—just as Ann Rutledge was the true love of Lincoln.
As you've discovered, there aren't any really clear markers as to what and who she is referring to. That's part of the charm of the piece, especially to actors, who get to fill in the cracks when creating well-rounded characters out of these fairly short pieces.
Anyways - the clues are that she obviously lost out on something, whether that is a romance or a career move (although that seems less likely because of the time period). Since she talks about New York, it's possible she's referring to Flossie Cabanis, who went to the city and had a relationship with a famous actor. But, if that's what Amelia is referencing, then you can infer that something happened between she and Flossie before she left - perhaps a romantic triangle? If you read Flossie's piece, you'll see that her success and happiness did not last, so Amelia was right that even though she was left behind and died, she won.