The Clerk's Tale
Poems
HarperCollins · Print & ebook · 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.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- These restrained poems let ordinary work and passing places hold a longing for permanence.
- Themes
- Longing for permanence, Service and brotherhood, Landscape and place
- Genres
- American Poetry
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
Memoir of the HawkJames Tate50% matchShares American Poetry
Nonrequired ReadingWislawa Szymborska47% match
THE MOON IS ALWAYS FEMALEMarge Piercy45% matchShares American Poetry
The Wife of BathGeoffrey Chaucer53% match
The Canterbury TalesGeoffrey Chaucer52% match
West WindMary Oliver52% match
The Best Poems of the English LanguageHarold Bloom52% match
Line and LightJeffrey Yang51% match
For younger readers: Canterbury Tales, Button Up!, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
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.
Continue reading
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."
Quietly Luminous
These restrained poems let ordinary work and passing places hold a longing for permanence.
Come here for
- The unexpected poetry of service and polished form
- A thoughtful meeting of mall light and Gothic grandeur
Expect
- Fifty carefully crafted poems
- A lingering attention to dusk, geography, and the wish for permanence
Where it sits
| American Poetry | 83% |
|---|
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- American Poetry
- African American Poetry
- Asian American Poetry
- Caribbean & Latin American Poetry
- Authors
- Spencer Reece
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- April 4, 2004
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Longing for permanence · Service and brotherhood · Landscape and place
- Reading lane
- American Poetry