The Evangelism of Rhyme
Spencer Reece’s memoir lays bare deeply personal details but doesn’t stop there. Rather, he invites the reader to partake of the means of grace he has received.
Review by Whitney Rio-Ross
The first page of Spencer Reece’s memoir serves as a warning. Rather than beginning with an excerpt of poetry or religious prelude (as we might expect from a Christian poet like Reece), he introduces himself as a teenager masturbating to a Playgirl magazine in a graveyard toolshed. It’s a smart, even considerate move, saying, “If you’re horrified by the second paragraph, perhaps this isn’t for you.” This opening scene isn’t for shock value. Though the book isn’t a play-by-play of Reece’s sexual desires and acts, the topic is central, especially in the first half. Sexuality is integral to his story, his poetry, and his faith.
Reece’s frankness and detail on the matter is rather unique for a Christian writer of any sexual identity. Although sexuality is embodied, Christians still often address it in vague, disembodied terms. Any shame we feel about sexual preference or sex in general naturally seeks cloaked and clouded language. Reece dares to dive into the particulars of the shame he has felt throughout his life, which stems from several difficult topics—sexuality, alcoholism, depression, rejection, poverty, a family with layered with dysfunctionality, and the usual doubts that come with a religious vocation. It’s an effective method, allowing readers to learn about him while also examining themselves. “Why does this make me squirm?” I asked myself at times. “Why would I never share this?”
Clearly, Reece hasn’t had an easy life. Yet his memoir isn’t self-pitying, as I had feared it might be. (I’ve avoided many memoirs on that account.) The best memoirs—those that can face personal joys and tragedies beyond the mirror—are as much about other people as they are about the writer. Near the end of the book, Reece says, “I see myself refracted through others. I can’t paint the scene of life without others in the painting.” Reece includes these others in two ways: First, he writes about many important people in his life and gives them as much vitality and depth as he gives himself; those closest to him are not merely characters in his story but fully fledged human beings with lives that extend beyond their relationships with him.
Second, half of the book is about his favorite poets. Each of the seven sections relates to a particular poet, and he reads his experiences through their work and their own biographies. As many people do with albums, Reece associates seasons of his life with who he was reading at the time. This structure could make the narrative feel disjointed, but Reece makes it work, especially because he continues to reference earlier poets as he falls in love with new ones.
Reece’s memoir is ultimately a salvation narrative. He began as a suicidal alcoholic and transformed into a celebrated poet and influential priest. Likewise, his relationship with poetry gracefully developed over time. As a teen, he saw Plath’s poetry as a brilliant reflection of his own soul. Then Elizabeth Bishop’s lines kept him at least occasionally alert during his drunken college years. Herbert, he says, “opened doors that gave [him] reasons to live.” James Merrill showed him qualities to aspire to both in and beyond his poems. They all kept him going, opening his mind and spirit to Christianity, though not all at once and with plenty of doubts and interruptions along the way. Yet bit by bit, the poems pried him free of his shame enough to welcome Christ’s embrace. He knows this might sound strange: “It seems radical to say I was born again through poetry. But why not be radical?” Some readers might find this language problematic. Is it idolatry? It could be; we can easily mistake a savior’s means for the savior. But Reece avoids that trap: “Poets got me to Christ,” he explains. “Rhyme evangelized me.” Poets and poetry were how God spoke to him; they were vessels of grace.
As Christ and poets welcomed him, Reece welcomes us into his life, which includes the poetry and faith that has kept him going.
Reece doesn’t provide much theology in the book, at least not outright. Where Lewis’s Surprised by Joy avoids many autobiographical details of a tell-all memoir, The Secret Gospel of Mark lacks a robust theological account of Reece’s conversion and his Christian beliefs. That is probably in the book’s best interest; Reece admits that he is most inarticulate when he tries to explain to others why he became a priest. He flounders for words during these opportunities to evangelize and finds himself full of so many questions that he doubts his calling.
Though he doesn’t provide a sermon about how poetry saved him, the ministry Reece describes shows the effects. We often imagine the means to an end as temporary. If an end is merely a completion, then the means may as well fall away because we have no use for them anymore. But this isn’t how salvation works; Reece understands that we are not simply being saved from something but into something else. All the poems that led Reece to the altar were not rungs on a ladder that he never intends to descend; they remain gifts infused with grace, meant to be cherished. While Reece has practiced typical clerical duties, his most successful ministries have involved poetry. Teaching poetry writing in Madrid and arranging a poetry reading series with his church allowed him to live Christianity through God’s means for his own salvation. Moreover, those ministries allowed him to share that grace.
Near the end of The Secret Gospel of Mark, Reece reflects, “like religion, poetry had to soar beyond the personal.” This memoir is intensely personal. From the first page, he lays himself bare, sexual fantasies and family fallouts exposed for the world’s judgment. And yet it does move beyond the purely personal; his vivid frankness unlocks universal themes by meeting us in a moment. I can’t imagine a reader not resonating with at least one part of Reece’s sprawling narrative, whether it be his inherited alcoholism or poetic endeavors or his decade working in retail. My heart leapt when I read that he pored over Hopkins during his dark hours in divinity school, just as I would do years later. What a strange fellowship I felt in those pages, knowing we recited the same words in the same buildings during our distinct sorrows.
As Christ and poets welcomed him, Reece welcomes us into his life, which includes the poetry and faith that has kept him going. In the end, The Secret Gospel of Mark is an act of generosity. Reece shares himself and the words that saved him, hoping they might grace our souls as they did his. He asks that God continue to work mysteriously through stanzas and the tale of an unlikely priest. As he describes a strange friend in his poem “The Road to Emmaus,”
What else can I say?
I needed a liberator
and liberators come in unexpected guises.
Whitney Rio-Ross holds a Master’s in Religion and Literature from Yale Divinity School. Her writing has appeared in Sojourners, Reflections, America Magazine, LETTERS Journal, The Cresset, St. Katherine Review, The Other Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Birthmarks and lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband.
The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir was published on March 16, 2021 by Seven Stories Press. You can purchase a copy on their website here.
