Guest lecturing for the amazing Tatiana Johnson-Boria’s Cultivating Your Poetry Collection, a three-month virtual intensive meant to help poets develop their collections through an artists collective called "The Starshine Arts Collective." More details here.

My virtual lecture will be on Generating Poems For a Manuscript. 30-mins lecture/craft talk and a 30-mins Q&A with students.

Date: 1/21/26

Time: 7-8pm EST/ 4-5PM PST

Place: Virtual

More info to follow

Bearded Bards of Bluesky is returning and raising money for Trans Lifeline!

The November lineup:

• Todd Dillard

• Brian Spears

• Matthew E. Henry

• James McConachie

• David J Bauman

• Jonathan Everitt

Frances Klein 

Megan McDermott

Jared Beloff

Matthew E. Henry

Register below. More info coming

Though it May Look Like Disaster: Poetic Forms to Save Your Life (Marianne Kunkel, Melissa Fite Johnson, Faisal Mohyuddin, Ashley M. Jones, Matthew E. Henry)

Do poetic forms have life-saving properties? Five poets will discuss how meter, rhyme, syllable count and other constraints have been sources of constancy and control during personal and political upheaval: layoffs, death, addiction, religious trauma, racism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They will examine the healing power of classic forms—sonnet, abecedarian and #ceasefire haiku—as well as remixed/invented forms, and share how forms can be a balm for a writer’s (or reader’s) heartbreak.

Location: Concourse Hall 151, Level One, Los Angeles Convention Center

Session Code: F227

3:20 PM - 4:35 PM PDT (6:20 - 7:35 EST)

I’ll be a featured reader in the Zoom-based Wild & Precious Life Series. I’ll be joining Kai Coggin and MT Vallarta on Thursday, September 26th, 2024.

The Wild & Precious Life Series launched on 4/1/20 as a response to the pandemic to create a virtual space for poets to share their work, poetry lovers to receive it, and spotlight poets with books being released during the pandemic.

The series has featured Diane Seuss, Marilyn Nelson, Dorianne Laux, Patricia Smith, Alicia Ostriker, Carolyn Forché, Denise Duhamel, Oliver de la Paz, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Victoria Chang, Paisley Rekdal, Major Jackson, Victoria Redel, Ashley M Jones, Dan Beachy-Quick, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Nin Andrews, Tina Chang, Tyree Daye, José Olivarez, Erika Meitner, Brynn Saito, Geffrey Davis, Mark Wunderlich, Julie Marie Wade, and many others. Click here for select recordings of WPLS readings.

“Doors” open at 7:15pm (EST).

All readings start at 7:30pm (EST).

I’m fortunate to be joining Jimmy Pappas for a conversation about the varying poetic form in said the Frog and the scorpion. These include

• traditional free verse

• Q&A formats

• a bingo board

• erasure poetry

• multiple choice quiz

• sonnets

• call and response poems

Join me online for a reading from my new collection, said the Frog to the scorpion, this Thursday night at 8pm. I’ll be joined by Kai Coggin and Maya Williams.

On the Frontlines/School Matters: K-12 Teachers Writing the Classroom

Panelists: Mahru Elahi, Marguerite Sheffer, Brittany Rogers, Matthew E. Henry, and Davon Loeb

Panel Description:

In-person event At a time when public educators are increasingly under political pressure, panelists will explore what it means to portray complex truths, dispel myths, and talk honestly about how to stay creative within top-down school systems as they find form and language for their experience with youth in the classroom. This multiracial and geographically diverse panel centers writers, editors and activists who put their K-12 classroom experience in conversation with their writing across multiple genres.

Join for a virtual reading from River Heron Review’s Poems for Now series on Thursday, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. (EST).

THERE ARE ONLY 20 SPOTS AVAILABLE. RSVP NOW

This hybrid Launch Celebration will feature readings from a diverse array of contributors and a dinner of vegan Indian food.

In person: Northeastern University's Boston campus in the Sacred Space, 203 Ell Hall, 360 Huntington Avenue. Or join via Zoom

I have the pleasure of being a guest reader

for the virtual book launch of Maurya Kerr’s new collection MUTTOLOGY

Jimmy Pappas has invited me back, this time to read from and discuss poetry and theology through my new full length collection The Third Renunciation.

I will be reading from and discussing the colored page

I’ll be reading my poem [Say pity is not love, is not action] as a part of the launch party for Presence Journal 2023

This reading will feature ROBERT CORDING and also include poems from

• Bethany Besteman

• Julie Ann Cook

• John Hodgen

• A. M. Juster, translator

• Candice Kelsey

• James Davis May

• Fran McManus, RSM

• Susan L. Miller

• Remi Recchia

• Susanna Rich

• Alex Taylor, translator, and

• Melanie Weldon-Soiset

I’ll be reading a poem as a part of the The Mass Poetry Community Awards Ceremony.

Let's roll out the red carpet! Mass Poetry has invited beloved Massachusetts-based poets, nominated by their community members, who were named a literary winner or finalist in 2022, are Hidden Poetry Hero in their community or who have not been properly recognized for their work and atributions. Mass Poetry wants to celebrate these individuals and their accomplishments at an unforgettable ceremony. These poets will have the opportunity to read from their stunning work and receive a well-deserved toast and round of applause.

This event will take place on zoom. The link will be sent to registered participants the morning of the event by email.

Poet Jimmy Pappas is leading an interactive, group conversation about my poetry via Zoom. The topic of conversation is “teaching while Black.”

Visiting Dr. Bunkong Tuon's Black Lives Matter Poetry Class to read and discuss the Colored page.

Virtual reading for Fahmidan Journal.

A Hundred Pitchers of Honey is a new online reading series that launched in January of 2022 by Donna Vorreyer. Named after a line from the Jack Gilbert poem "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart," the readings will run once a month on Zoom.

Follow the series on Twitter at @hphseries

Follow us on Instagram at @hphreadingseries

Virtually visiting a creative writing class at Bard College.

Note: this event is now virtual.

I'll be sharing the stage with Kathleen Aguero and there will also be an open mic.

The Brookline Poetry Series is an independent monthly venue housed at the Brookline Public Library Main Branch. In past years we have hosted poets such as Alan Shapiro, Ross Gay, Stephanie Burt, Major Jackson, Fred Marchant, Claudia Rankine, and Rosanna Warren.

We meet the third Sunday of the month, September through May, from 2-4 p.m. The afternoon starts with our invited readers. An open mike closes the event, where some of the best up-and-coming lyric and narrative poets in Boston present their work. We draw a regular audience of 30-50 people, and poets often tell us that we have one of the most attentive audiences they have encountered. It's a serious but warm venue, with a strong sense of commitment to the work and to the community we've built. The Boston Globe has called us "the best literary open mike in Boston."

The Series directors are Ann Killough (winner of PEN New England Award), Aimée Sands (MacDowell Fellow), and Susan Jo Russell (two-time Pushcart nominee).

If you would like to receive the Zoom link for this reading, please click the link below to email Brookline Library

Showcasing a diverse array of voices and words. The second Thursday of each month on Zoom! All events will be live-captioned for accessibility.

More info to come

Hear selections from the Colored page, as well as Reagan Pietrucha’s Head of a Gorgon. AND hear from our cover artist, the amazing Jackie Liu!

Click here to register for reading.