Fr Spencer Reece is Rector of St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Wickford, Rhode Island, and an internationally acclaimed poet. His project teaching poetry to abandoned girls at the Our Little Roses orphanage in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was made into an award-winning film, Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World. His dream, prayer, and ultimate goal for his time with St. Paul’s Church is to continue the ongoing work of the parish in spreading Jesus’ radical love. “Let kindness be our legacy,” he has said.
Meet Fr Spencer at:
- 8 April – Midweek Eucharist, 10.30 am, St Andrew’s Wickford
- 8 April – Bread for the World Service, 6.30 pm, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London (Fr Spencer will share a reflection on the road to Emmaus)
- 9 April – ‘The Broken Altar’, a talk on George Herbert, 7.00 pm, St Andrew’s Lower Bemerton (Fr Spencer is giving this talk at the invitation of the George Herbert in Bemerton group - https://www.georgeherbert.org.uk/about/ghb_group.html)
- 10 April – Unveiled: Poetry Reading, 7.00 pm, St Andrew’s Wickford
- 11 April – Quiet Day: Poetry & Prayer, 10.30 am - 3.30 pm, St Mary’s Runwell (Fr Spencer will share poems and reflections on George Herbert)
- 12 April – Eucharist, 9.30 am, St Mary’s Runwell and Eucharist, 11.00 am, St Catherine’s Wickford (Fr Spencer will preach at both of these services); 4.00 pm, Showing of Voices Beyond the Wall, St Andrew’s Wickford
SPENCER REECE, 36th rector of St. Paul's Wickford, Rhode Island, is a Guggenheim Fellow and Whiting Fellow. Reece’s first book, The Clerk’s Tale, was selected for the Bakeless Prize by Nobel Laureate Louise Glück. Reece was ordained in Madrid, Spain, in 2011. Awarded a Fulbright, he taught poetry at Our Little Roses in San Pedro, Honduras, where he lived with the rescued girls at the home. The work was made into an award-winning film, Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World. The poems by the girls were made into an anthology edited by Reece, entitled Counting Time Like People Count Stars. In 2014 he published The Road to Emmaus which was a longlist nominee for the National Book Award and short-listed for the Griffin Prize. He moved to Madrid and assisted the Episcopal Bishop of Spain for a decade. During this time, he created The Unamuno Author Series, culminating in the first-ever anglophone literary festival in Madrid in 2019. In 2022, he published The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir and All The Beauty Still Left: A Poets’ Painted Book of Hours. Acts, a third book of poems, appeared in 2024. At St. Paul’s, he created the 14 Gold Street Author Series. In 2025, he was awarded the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the “elegant standards” of his contribution to the literary arts. Farewell Symphony his fourth collection of poems will be published in 2028. In 2034, Love IV: Collected Poems is scheduled to appear.
http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/
https://www.stpaulswickford.org/
https://www.spencerreece.org/
Click here for my interview with Spencer Reece for International Times and here for my review of Acts.
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George Herbert - The Call.




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