{"id":1554,"date":"2016-12-28T19:31:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T03:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2016-12-29T12:59:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-29T20:59:01","slug":"honoring-steven-reigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/2016\/12\/honoring-steven-reigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Steven Reigns"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1555\" style=\"width: 182px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Steven-Reigns-BW-image.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1555\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1555\" src=\"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Steven-Reigns-BW-image-172x300.jpg\" alt=\"Steven Reigns, poet\" width=\"172\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Steven-Reigns-BW-image-172x300.jpg 172w, https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Steven-Reigns-BW-image-768x1337.jpg 768w, https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Steven-Reigns-BW-image-588x1024.jpg 588w, https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Steven-Reigns-BW-image.jpg 1429w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 172px) 100vw, 172px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1555\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Reigns, poet<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Steven Reigns is set to be honored with the “Cross-Cut Award” on Thursday, January 5th at the monthly “Guys Reading Poems” open mic poetry night. Scheduled guests include poets Francesca Lia Block (“Weetzie Bat”), Laurel Ann Bogen and Elena Secota, actors Ethan Rains and Ronnie Kroell, playwright Ronnie Larsen and more. The event will be hosted by <em>Guys Reading Poems<\/em> director Hunter Lee Hughes.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Reigns is the first to receive the “Cross-Cut Award”, which is expected to be given twice a year from now on.\u00a0In film editing terminology, a cross-cut sequence is one where the movie jumps back and forth between\u00a0two contrasting scenes. It’s a tactic editors employ to build suspense or create a deeper understanding of the protagonist\u00a0by subtly relating the action\u00a0in one scene with a completely different set of events. A classic example would be the cross-cut sequence between the mafia murders in various parts of town with newly minted criminal mastermind Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) attending a baptism in\u00a0<em>The Godfather<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Artists, like movie characters, are often pulled in different directions, sometimes just to survive. And just as <em>The Godfather<\/em> cross-cut\u00a0sequence\u00a0reveals both the light and the dark side of\u00a0Michael Corleone, the synthesis of a multi-faceted artist’s life can be riveting to observe. The “Cross-Cut Award” seeks to honor artists whose life and career overlaps two different arenas, with both pursuits informing and enriching the other. In the case of Steven Reigns, we honor his esteemed poetry career as well as his commitment to community service. Certainly, Steven’s resume as a poet is outstanding: he was appointed the first City Poet by the City of West Hollywood in 2014 after publishing the collections <em>Inheritance\u00a0<\/em>(Sibling Rivalry, 2011),\u00a0<em>Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat<\/em> (Burning Page Press, 2011) and dozens of chapbooks. He’s also a leader in the West Hollywood community. Steven has taught\u00a0and mentored senior citizen poets for more than ten years, and produces\u00a0the annual <em>My Life is Poetry<\/em> reading, which culminates his class. He\u00a0also works as a licensed psychotherapist and cut his teeth for a decade\u00a0in that field counseling\u00a0those facing\u00a0an HIV-positive diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p>Steven writes poems. Cross-Cut. Steven stands\u00a0at a lectern, reciting the poem of a deceased student. Cross-Cut. Steven writes more poems. Cross-Cut. Steven tells a young man the difficult news that his\u00a0HIV-status has changed. The counselor and mentor in Steven cross-cuts with the insightful poet in Steven almost too perfectly in “Recipe Box,” a short piece that depicts Steven’s\u00a0advice on how to grieve a long list of friends lost during the AIDS crisis, with the title of the poem encompassing the idea of his main suggestion.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1557\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/al-pacino.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1557\" class=\"wp-image-1557 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/al-pacino.jpeg\" alt=\"al-pacino\" width=\"290\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1557\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Al Pacino in “The Godfather”<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Things in Steven’s life may not exactly echo <em>The Godfather – <\/em>he’s never shot anyone (to our knowledge). But inevitable grief and its unwanted home in the body provided a sort of baptism for Steven Reigns. And so we honor him with the first “Cross-Cut Award.”<\/p>\n<p>“Guys Reading Poems” (open mic edition) – inspired by the feature film of the same name – takes place the <strong>first Thursday of every month at Shaky Alibi (7401 Beverly Boulevard, LA 90036) and runs 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.\u00a0<\/strong>Performers may present original work or perform public domain poetry of their choice. We encourage all skill levels to participate. The readers’ list for January is full; however, interested poets and performers may join the waitlist by<strong> texting “RSVP” to (424) 34-POEMS.<\/strong> Anyone on the waitlist for January that is precluded from reading due to time constraints will be guaranteed a slot for our February event. All performers are asked to keep their selection to one poem running less than three minutes. The poem “Recipe Box” – featured in the film <em>Guys Reading Poems<\/em> and in Steven’s book <em>Inheritance –\u00a0<\/em>will be read during our January\u00a0show.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Reigns is set to be honored with the “Cross-Cut Award” on Thursday, January 5th at the monthly “Guys Reading Poems” open mic poetry night. Scheduled guests include poets Francesca Lia Block (“Weetzie Bat”), Laurel Ann Bogen and Elena Secota, actors Ethan Rains and Ronnie Kroell, playwright Ronnie Larsen and more. The event will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,9],"tags":[152,53,50],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-by-you","category-poets","category-updates","tag-cross-cut","tag-guys-reading-poems","tag-steven-reigns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1566,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions\/1566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}