Inheritance by Steven Reigns

Inheritance

The autobiographical poems of Steven Reigns’ 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 what he has been given and the secrets that turn suburbia into a coming of age battlefield.

“In poems that blister and smoke as they announce his arrival, Reigns explores the inexhaustible power of family to affect our lives and loves, and does so in a candid yet passionate manner remarkable for its evocative and wounding moments.”

—Wanda Coleman, author of Heavy Daughter Blues and Mercurochrome

“This book is bursting full of relationships. Everybody in Inheritance lives; maybe the best they can. It’s an awesomely tough and vulnerable book. If people of the future want to know what it was like to be alive today, in my house and yours, read this.”

—Eileen Myles, author of Sorry, Tree and Skies

“…sizzles with the unsparing heat of memory…the reader is almost singed by how close to the mark the words flare. Though unsparing in its account of a gay boy’s journey through abuse, Inheritance exhilarates in the energy released when the story is told, claimed, and transformed.”

—Tim Miller, author of Body Blows and 1001 Beds

“Steven Reigns’ 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 this 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.”

—Mark Doty, author of Fire to Fire and Atlantis