{"product_id":"reece-spencer-road-to-em","title":"Reece, Spencer: The Road to Emmaus","description":"\u003cp\u003eFarrar, Straus and Giroux, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: March 31, 2015\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLonglisted for the National Book Award\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA moving, subtle sequence of narrative poems, from a sharp new poetic voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo strangers walk toward Emmaus. Christ has just been crucified, and they are heartbroken--until a third man joins them on the road and comforts them. Once they reach Emmaus and break bread, the pair realizes they have been walking with Christ himself. But in the moment they recognize him, he disappears. Spencer Reece draws on this tender story in his mesmerizing collection--one that fearlessly confronts love and its loss, despair and its consolation, and faith in all of its various guises.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReece's central figure in \u003ci\u003eThe Road to Emmaus\u003c\/i\u003e is a middle-aged man who becomes a priest in the Episcopal Church; these poems follow him to New York City, to Honduras, to a hospital where he works as a chaplain, to a prison, to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. With language of simple, lyrical beauty that gradually accrues weight and momentum, Reece spins compelling dramas out of small moments: the speaker, living among a group of orphans, wondering \"Was it true, what they said, that a priest is a house lit up?\"; two men finding each other at a Coming Out Group; a man trying to become visible after a life that had depended on not being seen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA yearning for connection, an ache of loneliness, and the instant of love disappearing before our eyes haunt this long-awaited second collection from Spencer Reece.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40817135288343,"sku":"9780374535209","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/products\/view_archive_5c70560c-b46a-4646-9e09-03197e43c291.jpg?v=1703281088","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/reece-spencer-road-to-em","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}