
Acts
Poems
Spencer Reece(Author)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc (Publisher)
Published on 20. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
128 pages
978-0-374-60914-6 (ISBN)
Description
The poetry of Spencer Reece, a renowned writer who is also an Episcopal priest, is suffused with tenderness, humanity, and a wondrous alchemy of beauty and sorrow. As the Nobel laureate Louise Glueck wrote, "Emanating from Spencer Reece's work [is] a sense of immanence that belongs more commonly to religious passion; it is a great thing to have it again in art."
Acts, Reece's third book of poetry, is the product of a decade of work and of a life acutely lived. In these poems, he celebrates the language and literature of Spain and tracks his tenure as a minister there. At times, the collection is a love letter to Madrid; at other moments, to Old Lyme, Connecticut, where the speaker's parents lived, and Rhode Island, where he now resides. The poems are also an homage to the letter as an art form, a rich if waning means of connection. In Acts, Reece confronts grief and love, loneliness and self-acceptance, with honesty, artful lyricism, and, above all, a true and luminous grace.
Acts, Reece's third book of poetry, is the product of a decade of work and of a life acutely lived. In these poems, he celebrates the language and literature of Spain and tracks his tenure as a minister there. At times, the collection is a love letter to Madrid; at other moments, to Old Lyme, Connecticut, where the speaker's parents lived, and Rhode Island, where he now resides. The poems are also an homage to the letter as an art form, a rich if waning means of connection. In Acts, Reece confronts grief and love, loneliness and self-acceptance, with honesty, artful lyricism, and, above all, a true and luminous grace.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
136 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-374-60914-6 (9780374609146)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Spencer Reece's first book of poetry, The Clerk's Tale, received the Bakeless Prize and an award from the Library of Congress. His second collection, The Road to Emmaus, was long-listed for the National Book Award and short-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Reece has also edited a bilingual anthology of poems by the children of Our Little Roses Home for Girls in Honduras, Counting Time Like People Count Stars; written a memoir, The Secret Gospel of Mark; and published a book of watercolors, All the Beauty Still Left. As an Episcopal priest, he has served in San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Madrid; and New York City. He is the vicar of St. Paul's Church in Wickford, Rhode Island.