Spencer Reece

Spencer Reece is a American poet.

Life
Reece is a graduate of Wesleyan University (1985). At Wesleyan, he took a class in writing verse with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Annie Dillard (Tinker at Pilgrim Creek), whom he describes as "an early encourager,"  along with James Merrill, the Stonington poet with whom Spencer shared a correspondence. He went on to receive an Master of Arts (postgraduate)M.A.]] from the University of York (UK), a Master of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School and a Master of Divinity from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University]].

His 2004 book The Clerk’s Tale, was published by Houghton Mifflin. The title poem describes a day in the life at a store in the Mall of America; Reece had worked for many years as a sales associate at Brooks Brothers in the Mall. The book was the winner of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize, as judged by former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück. "James Franco made a short film from the title poem."

His second book, The Road to Emmaus, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux on 2013. His work has appeared in Boulevard, The New Yorker and The American Poetry Review.

"He has finished a prose devotional, The Little Entrance. The devotional takes as its premise that poems are like Byzantine icons, portals to the divine, the book is a series of meditations on four poets: George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson and James Merrill. This book is being considered for publication for 2015 by Greywolf Press."

Reece, formerly a postulant for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church, is currently the chaplain to the Bishop of Spain for the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church (Spanish: Iglesia Española Reformada Episcopal). . He lives in Juno Beach, Florida.

Recognition

 * Recipient of the Witter Bynner Prize administered by the Library of Congress.
 * Recipient of the Pushcart Prize in 2009.
 * Recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award in 2005 for poetry.
 * Winner of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize for 2004.
 * Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
 * Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship.
 * Recipient of a Amy Lowell Traveling Grant