The Clerk's Tale: Poems [Paperback]

Spencer Reece (Author), Laureate Louise Gluck (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2004

In a recent double fiction issue, The New Yorker devoted the entire back page to a single poem, "The Clerk's Tale," by Spencer Reece. The poet who drew such unusual attention has a surprising background: for many years he has worked for Brooks Brothers, a fact that lends particular nuance to the title of his collection. The Clerk's Tale pays homage not only to Chaucer but to the clerks' brotherhood of service in the mall, where "the light is bright and artificial, / yet not dissimilar to that found in a Gothic cathedral." The fifty poems in The Clerk's Tale are exquisitely restrained, shot through with a longing for permanence, from the quasi-monastic life of two salesmen at Brooks Brothers to the poignant lingering light of a Miami dusk to the weight of geography on an empty Minnesota farm. Gluck describes them as having "an effect I have never quite seen before, half cocktail party, half passion play . . . We do not expect virtuosity as the outward form of soul-making, nor do we associate generosity and humanity with such sophistication of means, such polished intelligence . . . Much life has gone into the making of this art, much patient craft."

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

"Inside everything was Episcopalian— / the wicker chaise lounges, the small spotted mirrors, / the rattan dining room set, the tears." Reece's evocation of a family house on Cape Cod, eventually sold, exemplifies the twin currents of detached humor and sorrow that run through his début collection. The most effective poems here are autobiographical, recording early family life; a period spent recovering from a nervous breakdown in hospitals and borrowed houses ("My legacy is to leave the room empty"); and a new life in retail—hence the title. Reece's poems are saved from solipsism by a keen alertness to the characters around him and to the consolations of the natural world. Animals please him, because they are happier than people—"The ponies said: This day astounds us. The field is green." And resignation brings with it a kind of peace, as in a poem written on the poet's birthday in a lonely Florida town: "It is not Paris it is not Florence / but it has majesty in its anonymity."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

From Booklist

Supple, atmospheric, and lucent, Reece's entrancing lyrics evoke the diametrically opposed yet equally affecting landscapes of Minnesota and Florida and consider the axis between solitude and connection, peace and pain, philosophy and madness. Reece's poems are at once splendidly fresh and deeply rooted in poetry's rich loam as he offers a witty yet moving variation on Chaucer's The Clerk's Tale and echoes the work of Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and James Merrill. No academic, Reece is a longtime Brooks Brothers employee, and, accordingly, the title poem, originally published in the New Yorker, portrays two men, including an aging homosexual, who clerk in an upscale men's clothier in the Mall of America, an edifice Reece compares to a Gothic cathedral. Indeed, religious images surface often as the poet summons up childhood memories and evokes resonant vignettes, still lives, and today's cluttered versions of pastorals, subtly tracing the soul's uncertain progress from brute survival to transcendent receptivity and affirmation. Insightfully introduced by poet laureate Louise Gluck, Reece's striking debut yields new revelations with each reading. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618422544
• ISBN-13: 978-0618422548
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Luminous, June 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Clerk's Tale: Poems (Paperback)

Spencer Reece has achieved a rarity in first poetry books--a collection that displays the voice of maturity and the guileless wonder of youth. The Clerk's Tale concerns itself with no less than the journey of the soul. Many of the "tales" are taken from Reece's life and detail the loss of his home and possessions, his time spent in a psychiatric ward, and his gradual recovery and the reclamation of his life. Though these beautifully rendered pieces are heartbreaking in their forthrightness and honesty, they never wallow in self-pity or lapse into solipsism; instead they ultimately reaffirm the necessity of accepting darkness and difficulty as part and parcel of a fully realized life. I highly recommend this collection.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Minnesota, Florida, Silence, July 10, 2006

By 

Erin S. Crawford (Fort Collins, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Clerk's Tale: Poems (Paperback)

Reece takes his reader's around the US and brings them back to themselves. For the first time, for me at least, one sees the irony of the beauty of the outside of a hospital and then the agony within.

One travels from the busy streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, to the quiet back waters of Florida. Reece shows a great desire of silence, for solitude. When a days work is done he goes home and shuts himself in a room, left with nothing but silence and his thoughts.

A reflextion on life and what is all the hurry about.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, Luminous Poems, November 2, 2006

By 

Marion "[e-mail]" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Clerk's Tale: Poems (Paperback)

I read this entire book of poems in one sitting---something I rarely do with poetry. It's hard to believe that this is a first book of poetry because the poems are so amazing, succinct and perfect. It's a journey into one man's life that will leave you wanting more.

Thank you, Mr. Reece, for sharing your life though your awesome poems.