The Quiet Persistence of Poet Spencer Reece

“I never talked about the poems. My art left me inarticulate. I’d cultivated it alone for twenty years.”

— Spencer Reece, "The Secret Gospel of Mark"

Reece writes,”Success can surprise us with its challenge when we’re accustomed to failure.”

photo courtesy of seven stories press

“Emily Dickinson didn’t like to be noticed,” Spencer Reece writes in his memoir, The Secret Gospel of Mark, “and yet she wanted very much to be seen. These two opposing impulses were always seesawing in her brain.”

They seesaw in Reece’s brain, too.

He doesn’t want to stand out for the wrong reasons (being too effeminate). Yet he craves love—and literary success. A mountain of rejection slips, men who aren’t attracted to him, and an alcohol addiction threaten to obscure him.

What does he have going for him? A belief so strong it tips the scales.

Reece works a retail job in Florida for 12 years. He keeps writing. He keeps submitting. And he finally— finally—sells a poem to The New Yorker.

It’s about working at Brooks Brothers.

Writers are often told, “Write what you know.” That’s good advice—and a great place to start—but every amazing writing teacher I’ve had offered something better: “Keep writing.”

It doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be seen—but giving up guarantees we won’t.