Poet, Episcopal priest to conduct residency at CSB/SJU

Spencer Reece is a man of many collars.

Reece is an ordained Episcopalian priest and serves as a chaplain to Bishop Carlos Lopez-Lozano of the Reformed Episcopal Church in Spain. He’s also an award-winning poet, author of two poetry books and editor of a third.

He will be in residence March 24-27 at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, with two public events scheduled.

There will be a documentary showing of the movie, “Voices Beyond the Wall: Twelve Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World,” at 7 p.m. Monday, March 25, in room 204, Gorecki Center, CSB. The documentary is based on the book Reece edited, “Counting Time Like People Count Stars: Poems by the Girls of Little Roses, San Pedro Sula, Honduras.”

Then, Reece will give a public reading of his poems and hold an audience question-and-answer period at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 26, in room 204, Gorecki Center, CSB. 

Both events are free and open to the public and are sponsored by the Literary Arts Institute at CSB.

Reece was born in Hartford, Connecticut and raised in Minneapolis. He received his MTS at Harvard Divinity School and MDiv at Yale Divinity School, and was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 2011.

His first book of poems, “The Clerk’s Tale,” was published in 2004. The title poem of the book describes a day in the life of a clerk at a store in the Mall of America, where Reece worked as a sales associate at Brooks Brothers in the mall.

“The Clerk’s Tale” was chosen for the Bakeless Poetry Prize judged by former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and was turned into a short film by actor James Franco in 2010.

Reece’s second poetry collection was “The Road to Emmaus” (2013), which was a long list nominee for the National Book Award.

Reece received a grant from the Fulbright Foundation to fund his work of teaching poetry in a Honduran orphanage in 2012-2013, and compiled and published a book of his students’ poems: “Counting Time Like People Count Stars: Poems by the Girls of Little Roses, San Pedro Sula, Honduras” (2017). Reece’s experiences with these students was also filmed and produced into a documentary, “Voices Beyond the Wall: Twelve Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World.”

Reece has received numerous fellowships, including awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Council, a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship and a Whiting Writers’ Award.

The Literary Arts Institute (LAI) was founded in 1997 to foster creative writing, publishing and interaction between students and writers.

LAI brings nationally recognized authors to the college for a visiting writers series, promotes literary events, holds conferences, supports publications (S. Mariella Gable Prize) and encourages the artistry of fine letterpress (Welle Book Arts Studio). With its local and national partners, such as Graywolf Press, LAI is able to bring writers and their work together with readers on campus, in Minnesota and beyond.