The Gazette reviews, Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat
Story by Brian Feist
You a lowdown dog is what's wrong, I say. It's time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need." (Celie to Mister in Alice Walker's The Color Purple) Such is the inspiration that gave a name to Steven Reigns' self-published book of poetry and short prose, Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat. Reigns appeared November 17 for a book signing and reading at A Different Grind coffee shop in Tampa. Reigns, 26 and the fictional Celie share a lot in common. Both overcame years of physical and sexual abuse to emerge as strong and vital people devoted to using their experiences to helping others. "These issues need to be discussed. We need to open a dialogue," says Reigns of the abuse that he suffered and that seems to be rampant in our society. "We need to use our voices whenever we can." Reigns happily accepts the title of activist and is grateful to have found a voice for his activism in his writing."I think that's what art is, or should be," he adds. Your Dead Body definitely succeeds in the genre of art as activism.
I don't write about rainbows and waterfalls,"says Reigns. "It's not who I am or what I'm about or where I came from."
Where he came from was at the tender age of ten being dragged under the stairs in the basement by an older neighbor boy and raped while his June Cleaver-esque mother prepared dinner above him. The abuse continued for years. His unapologetic poetry and short prose writings of are sometimes harsh, sometimes tender, always direct, as a young boy maneuvers a mostly rocky road to adulthood.
Reigns hopes his writing will help others who have been or continue to be abused. He uses a rock-climbing analogy to make his point. A rock climber will drive a cam into the cracks in the rocks to use as a hand or foothold as he climbs higher. As he passes, he doesn't remove the cam and take it with him. "The cam is left behind for whoever comes behind."
Reigns is an avid reader and lists among his favorite authors Sapphire, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and Bernard Cooper. He was thrilled when his "idol," Sapphire, agreed to write a critique for the back cover of his book.