Poetry. LGBT Studies. The autobiographical poems of Steven Reigns's INHERITANCE introduce us to the gains and losses of a true American family and detail the bequests of the shadows that linger. Reigns glosses over nothing to reveal the secrets that turn suburbia into a coming-of-age battlefield. As Mark Doty "Steven Reigns's graceful, plainspoken lyrics describe the shape of one gay life at the beginning of this new century, a time of uncertainty, transformation, and hope. To read his book is to meet a man alert to his times and the textures of the lives around him, a community observed with tenderness, wit and pleasure."
Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles poet and educator and was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. Alongside over a dozen chapbooks, he has published the collections Inheritance and Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat. Reigns holds a BA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida, a Master of Clinical Psychology from Antioch University, and is a fourteen-time recipient of The Los Angeles County’s Department of Cultural Affairs’ Artist in Residency Grant. He edited My Life is Poetry, showcasing his students’ work from the first-ever autobiographical poetry workshop for LGBT seniors. Reigns has lectured and taught writing workshops around the country to LGBT youth and people living with HIV. Currently he is touring The Gay Rub, an exhibition of rubbings from LGBT landmarks, facilitates the monthly Lambda Lit Book Club, and is at work on a new collection of poetry.
STEVEN REIGNS: Inheritance ‘Silence only protects predators.’
Reading Steven Reigns’ unflinchingly real poems is a reminder of one of the core aspects of poetry: observe or experience, withdraw for perspective, condense and distill, and place with polished craft on a page. In his collection of poems, INHERITANCE, he has done just that, though these poems cover a period of history in the poet’s life, a history that reflects childhood, family, and the gradual unraveling of the Norn’s thread of life, moments that brought him to the place he now occupies – a mature poet who has survived the at times cruel dynamics of coming to grips with his own sexuality. He has not only stepped above the hurdles of his past – physical and sexual abuse from family, pain inflicted from the venom of schoolmates, from a temporary hiding place with drugs and encounters not always positive - but he has also gained degrees in both Creative Writing and Clinical Psychology, all providing the matrix on which to publish five volumes of poetry, create several art installations, art performances and works of art, and serve his community as an innovative and meaningful teacher. Steven Reigns is, then, successful, and one of the motivators of his success has been his addiction to personal narrative to share his own journey, a quietly magnanimous gesture to all those who struggle with coming to accept self – especially sexual self. Reigns accepts his past, holds his parents accountable for their parenting in at times acerbic tones that only time has reshaped to create tolerable memories.
SHE KNEW
In a dream I’m with my neighbor. We are boys standing in the basement of my boyhood home. He is holding me down, touching me and I become aware there is someone watching. My mother is there. The touching continues, but my fear is replaced with shame. My mother does nothing except watch. I feel her anger, her disgust, her disappointment. It is directed at me.
I wake up from the dream. I can’t cry. I write it down to prevent amnesia, She knew.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard about mom not confronting her brother when my sister complained of a cousin who fondled, felt-up, and fingered places of her anatomy she couldn’t even name.
By not telling my mother, I was spared the knowledge she wouldn’t have done anything. Spared 20 years of having this unnamed feeling. In a way my silence did protect me. Until the dream and penned note beside my bed. Those paternal expectations that breed self contempt even without spoken words Reigns shares in the following:
DAD’ S EMPIRE
He rubbed my mother’s swollen belly. Dreamt of the All-American Boy he’d raise, games of catch, putting worms on hooks, and giving advice on the ladies. He took photos at the birth. The second child a boy, his dreams finally fulfilled. The family is now complete. They are the American dream; suburban home, 2 cars, privacy fence, a dog, one boy, one girl, a 401k, and secrets we kept.
And when parental confrontation occurs, instead of guidance and support and understanding that might have smoothed the already treacherous road of self perception and sexual identity ahead, the abuse continues:
AFTER THE BALLGAME
I’m on the toilet, pants around my ankles.
My mother knocks, opens the door, lets herself in to the bathroom after a baseball game I was forced to play. I should have locked the door.
I’m naked, exposed, vulnerable. I am captive.
She sits on the edge of the bathtub and talks to me about how much I embarrass her—my light voice, my limp wrists, my lack of baseball ability.
“You know, if you keep acting like a girl maybe we should start putting you in dresses.”
I cannot think of ways to leave this situation. My pants and underwear rest on my cleats. My ass dirty, my torso naked, “You seem to want to be a girl. Maybe we could go to the doctor and he can make you a girl.” I sit humiliated listening to her words of degradation. Teased in the halls of school, spit wads aimed at me on the bus and now this.
The toilet, the timing, the topic keeps me from retelling the story for twenty years. Still blaming myself for being girly and not locking the door.
She will not mention this conversation again. I don’t either, out of fear of hearing her words. This is when I thought silence would protect me. With mature courage Reigns is able to relate more serious types of abusive behavior while still maintaining that requisite cage of silence that was his home: JOSH
Age eleven, at summer’s end, I watched my thin redheaded neighbor change from bathing suit to Boy Scout uniform. Watched his naked body, marveled at the freckled pigment. The strongest image was when he stepped into his white underwear. I glimpsed the barely-hidden hole of his ass. Large, puckered, swollen – slight bruises on his hips.
After seeing gay pornography for the first time seven years later I was able to recognize what I had seen. His little boy’s ass had been used. Who was taking advantage of him? His father? Brother? Boy Scout leader? If he would have confided in me, I wouldn’t have thought such actions were odd. After all, it was happening to me. I thought every boy carried these secrets. But Reigns moves on beyond childhood experiences such as these, developmentally important or bruising as they were, and is able to step into the world of proximity to others who shared his proclivities. Some of these experiences are tainted by the insecurities of persistent memories: ARE YOU EMBARRASSED TO BE SEEN WITH ME? I asked the question, a common question in the house I grew up in. I looked to my friend for an answer, who cringed at the question, cringed at what lay under it, cringed at my abandon when asking. The unconsciousness of it all, the lack of anything but my looks to define me. “Would you be embarrassed to be seen with me?” She alters her pursed mouth and smiles slightly. The facial expression a mother would give to a foolish child, “Steven, you never need to ask that question again.” It was the first time I questioned the question that I had never asked to anyone else but my parents and the mirror.
100 % [excerpt] …… My grandfather, a man who pats my head, rubs my back, kisses my cheek, tells me he loves me, and hopefully, isn’t ashamed that other men do the same. And as Reigns moves on into being openly gay, trying relationships, longing for others, he still is able to relate his responses in citing truths, because for him truth is more interesting than fiction. With candor and courage he speaks of the inequities of power. In his words, ‘Secrets are some of the worst things to inherit and I don’t intend to leave any behind in my will.’
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR THAT WITH? YOUR GOOD LOOKS?
It was said as a reminder to keep my desires in place. Tongue-in-check implication was my looks weren’t enough to be of value. That I had nothing else besides the poor quality of my face. It was also a hint at their unwillingness to pay for things standard in the role of a parent.
Their saying was always present, even when they weren’t. It kept me impoverished, disempowered, wanting.
My idol in Miami reading and signing a book I longed to hear her read from. This was the biggest desire of my 22-year-old life, not knowing how I’d afford gas to get there. The mail came and I opened the envelope, a check for my modeling underwear at a club. I thought of my parents. I wanted to dial the phone and answer the question.
Yes.
EX’ S WEBPAGE
I fumble onto my recent ex’s webpage. A page designed to solicit sex. I feel uneasy. It starts off , “Hi, guys!” and I think how he is now courting en masse. How nothing is sacred, that what he shared with me will be shared with all. But I am not naïve. There is nothing physically I could have given him that I had not given to others. And I think about what was between us, how after we broke up we had sex. The motions void of the unbridled emotions we had once felt for one another. He wrote that he is “not choosy” and my ego’s bruise blackens.
THE DEAD
I read his obituary. Not only will he never breathe, eat, or sleep, he will never fuck. I remember the hot tub, his wandering hands, and I feel honored to have shared that with him.
I’ve shared sex with so many who are now dead,
been there to give a moment of pleasure to a shortened life.
Knowing them in ways their mourning mothers couldn’t have known. Knowing their bodies not like the back of my hand or hometown but as a quick destination I’d visit for adventure, excitement, ejaculation.
I knew their bodies when they had pulses, when their heartbeats quickened and their chests heaved with the intensity of orgasm. To desire them now feels odd as the very vessel I lusted for decomposes.
And when one of our sexual scenes flashes through my mind during masturbation,
I appease my guilt, remind myself that this is a away I knew them.
An ex-lover’s way of honoring the dead and honoring the places I touched that cannot be touched again.
Excerpting poems from a collection as powerful as INHERITANCE is more than a challenge for a reviewer, deciding which poems best isolate varied moments of life experiences, choosing some because they are so eloquently written, mourning the exclusion of others that may have provided friendly bridges for others. Steven Reigns has gained awards in the past and will undoubtedly be garnered more in the future. But there is another role he has assumed that validates his position as both a fine port and a caretaker of the human spirit: Reigns organized and taught the first-ever autobiography poetry workshop for GLBT seniors, publishing their writings in a volume MY LIFE IS POETRY. He has extended his honest narrative to encourage others to follow. And that is a gift. Grady Harp
Steven Reigns writes with a memoirist's clarity and a clear mission: to excise the demons of the past, to expose buried secrets to the air and – most importantly – to offer a voice of compassion and understanding to those who've been down the same road.
The cycle of abuse recalled in Reigns' new collection, Inheritance ($13, Lethe Press), is nightmarish in its scope: from being sexually abused by a neighbor to the constant verbal and physical abuse from both parents who don't understand their gay son. These memories are journalistic in their concise, factual reporting, but also resonate with understated lyricism. There are no wasted words or sentiment.
Like Kim Noriega's chapbook Name Me (which I reviewed last week), Inheritance is a journey one must undertake, but the road is often filled with landmines sure to make readers wince more than once. And, yet, Inheritance is not only a necessary journey, but a must – for survivors and those untouched by abuse. There is a deeper understanding being told in these poems.
In "Playing With The Doll," a nine-year neighbor gradually turns from molesting a plastic doll to a young Reigns. When his mother finds the semen-coated doll and Reigns tells her of the abuse, her response is. "You're such a liar, don't blame it on anyone else. / You're sick Steven." The neighbor eventually moves on to molesting Reigns' sister.
The mother figure, beaten and demoralized by the father, takes out her anger and frustrations on her son, looking for any way to embarrass him or call his burgeoning sexuality into question. In "After the Ballgame," the mother taunts Reigns as he sits on the toilet, needling him about his poor performance as a baseball player – a sport he was forced into by his father.
I cannot think of ways to leave this situation. My pants and underwear rest on my cleats. My ass dirty, my torso naked, "You seem to want to be a girl. Maybe we could go to the doctor and he could make you a girl."
When Reigns moves away and begins to explore his sexuality, the abuse from his past continues to haunt him. He wallows in cocaine, one-night stands and yearns for real love and affection. Meanwhile, his friends from the party circuit begin to succumb to AIDS.
Reigns turns to poetry to replace his missing parental figures. In "Mother," he details his attraction to female poets:
Reviewing my bookshelf I appear more like a lost boy than a bibliophile.
Seeking out a mother figure from women who mother words.
Along the way, Reigns finds familial bonds again from his sister and his elderly grandfather, who loves him unconditionally. From "100%":
My grandfather, a man who pats my head, rubs my back, kisses my cheek, tells me he loves me, and hopefully, isn't ashamed that other men do the same.
Inheritance ends with Reigns still struggling to learn to love himself, but there is also a spark of hope – from the friendships and relationships he's made since he left his abusive childhood home. Reigns' poems have a cinematic quality about them, so it's fitting this collection ends on a cliffhanger. I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.
This compelling collection of poems captures the essence of growing up in a fractured home. It is written with a deep sense of urgency by an extremely talented and seasoned poet who takes ownership of his complex upbringing, exposing his raw vulnerability with profound candor. Reign's book transcends pain and shame, and he should be applauded for his courage in sharing his narrative with the world. Reigns writes about secrets, dying lovers, psychic wounds, and passions-all the while reminding readers that he is who he is and is rightfully proud to be so.
The poem "Cocaine" sums up Reign's deepest sentiments: "The drug guided me to the inheritance my parents deprived me of-unconditional love." The poems "Biting," "Tom," and "Josh" aptly describe what gay love is all about. The last line of the poem "Italo" states: "Shock is too gentle a word," which is what one feels after reading this collection.
These poignant and unforgettable poems will leave readers with indelibly strong images, days after putting the book down. Also, this work will inspire those with similar stories to crack open their journals and write. Unforgettable and powerful. Highly recommended.