Poetry Reading with Poet Laureate Steven Reigns - Outliving Michael | Books on Third

Join us for an evening with poet and educator Steven Reigns, the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood, as he reads from Outliving Michael Books on Third is proud to welcome poet and educator Steven Reigns for an in-store author event during National Poetry Month to celebrate his newest collection, Outliving Michael. Reigns will share selections from the book and discuss his life and work as a writer, teacher, and LGBTQ+ cultural documentarian. This moving evening will explore memory, friendship, loss, and the lasting impact of the AIDS epidemic through poetry and personal history. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase books and have them signed following the program. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles poet and educator and was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. He is the author of the poetry collections Inheritance, Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat, and A Quilt for David. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida and a Master of Clinical Psychology from Antioch University and is a sixteen-time recipient of the Los Angeles County Department of Cultural Affairs Artist in Residency Grant. Reigns edited My Life is Poetry, featuring work from the first autobiographical poetry workshop for LGBT seniors. He has lectured and taught writing workshops nationwide for LGBTQ+ youth and people living with HIV. He is currently touring The Gay Rub, an exhibition of rubbings from LGBTQ+ landmarks, and serves as board president of the Anaïs Nin Foundation. ABOUT THE BOOK — Outliving Michael Outliving Michael is a memorial memoir in poetry chronicling Steven Reigns’s profound friendship with Michael Church, who died of AIDS in 2000. Through tender vignettes and reflections, Reigns traces their intergenerational bond—one shaped by mentorship, shared artistic pursuits, and quiet acts of devotion as gay men in the 1990s. Both elegy and archive, the collection honors the countless roles played by a generation lost to AIDS: lover, sibling, parent, and friend. With lyric honesty and emotional depth, Reigns preserves the texture of their companionship and illuminates how certain people leave an indelible mark long after they are gone. Outliving Michael is a testament to friendship’s power to sustain, transform, and survive even death itself. Monday, April 6th at 5:30 Books on Third