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giedrep's review
5.0
Spencer Reece’s The Secret Gospel of Mark, a memoir and a poignant eulogy to poetry, has reminded me why I enjoy reading prose written by poets so profoundly.
Although Reece’s writing is honest to the bone, and his words are precise and often sharp as a knife, I could not get enough of the richness of his metaphors that kept my five senses on alert: “I shook like a bell struck”, “her heart was a pot left simmering on the stove”, “he was as small and delicate as a book of poems”, “streets were quiet as museums”, “the cathedral at the center a paperweight that holds the whole town down”.
The Secret Gospel of Mark is a story of repressed sexuality and shame, of alcoholism, AIDS, broken family ties, and of perpetual search for meaning. It’s a story of a life falling apart, often held together only by the redeeming power of poetry, Reece’s second religion.
Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, George Herbert, Gerald Manley Hopkins, James Merrill, Mark Strand, and many others accompanied Reece in his darkest moments of despair, of feeling out of time like “the leper from the Gospel of Mark, caged in smelly skin”, helping him to feel real, providing a space to breath, and finally helping him claim his way to sobriety.
Highly recommended to all believers in the power of poetry, as well as those who still need some convincing.
Although Reece’s writing is honest to the bone, and his words are precise and often sharp as a knife, I could not get enough of the richness of his metaphors that kept my five senses on alert: “I shook like a bell struck”, “her heart was a pot left simmering on the stove”, “he was as small and delicate as a book of poems”, “streets were quiet as museums”, “the cathedral at the center a paperweight that holds the whole town down”.
The Secret Gospel of Mark is a story of repressed sexuality and shame, of alcoholism, AIDS, broken family ties, and of perpetual search for meaning. It’s a story of a life falling apart, often held together only by the redeeming power of poetry, Reece’s second religion.
Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, George Herbert, Gerald Manley Hopkins, James Merrill, Mark Strand, and many others accompanied Reece in his darkest moments of despair, of feeling out of time like “the leper from the Gospel of Mark, caged in smelly skin”, helping him to feel real, providing a space to breath, and finally helping him claim his way to sobriety.
Highly recommended to all believers in the power of poetry, as well as those who still need some convincing.
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