Publication

the Colored page = full length manuscript = ACCEPTED by Sundress Publications!

My first full-length collection of poetry, the Colored page, will be published by Sundress Publications as a part of their 2022 catalog!!!!!!!!!

This collection is a semi-autobiographical (or completely autobiographical) journey from first grade through, well hell, last year, for a Black student/teacher/professor/teacher/writer in a white educational system. Think parts of Teaching While Black, but on the cocaine you see in 80s movies.

More info to come…!

an open letter to the public school employee worried that "antiracist" is too controversial a term published at Rejection Letters

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I can be really petty a times. Which make me appreciate this poem on multiple levels.

Yes. I said it.

I love one of my own poems.

Thanks to Rejection Letters for taking a chance on me once again, and putting "an open letter to the public school employee worried that 'antiracist' is too controversial a term" out into the world. I hope the world gets it.

As always, I hope the appropriate people are offended.

"a teachable moment" published by The Daily Drunk Mag

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For everyone else:

I love being a teacher.

I pretend to be a professional one.

That said, my poem "a teachable moment" has been published by The Daily Drunk Mag.

For one person in particular:

Dear_____________,

I wrote this poem with you in mind.

You’re a menace to society and I am proud to have you in my life.

Love,
MEH

“twelve minutes a slave” published in Ploughshares

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I mean, not sure how it happened, but a poem I am very proud of appears in a journal I am very proud to be seen in.

“twelve minutes a slave” is now in the Winter 2020-2021 issue of Ploughshares!

"an open letter to a classmate on a conversation we never had" published in Twyckenham Notes

My poem "an open letter to a classmate on a conversation we never had" was just published in Twyckenham Notes’ Voice’s of Color issue.

This is one of my school poems, except this time, I’m a much (much) older student.

And if you realize the poem is about you…oh well.



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This Present Former Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature [Editor]

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When you’re asked to edit an anthology of creative writing by atheists, clergy, and people everywhere in between you can’t say no. At least I can’t. I am thrilled and humbled by how this all came together.

45 stupid talented writers tackled the deepest and most abiding questions about wrestling with their conceptions of divinity and spirituality in the midst of systematic racism, church camps, sexism, babies, a pandemic, slavery, callings into ministry, abusive parents, divorces, holding hands with the dying, sweeping glass after a riot, and sitting by the ocean, waiting.

This Present Former Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature can be purchased at A Game for Good Christians’ website for $16.95. And it’s well worth the price.

On How I Ended Up On (Another) Government Watch List...

My poem “an open letter to the school resource officer who almost shot me in my class” has been reprinted in Into the Void’s new anthology We Are Antifa: Expressions Against Fascism, Racism and Police Violence in the United States and Beyond.

Available on Amazon, 100% of the proceeds from this collection goes to Black Lives Matter Toronto.

"The Whitening" - Flash Fiction at The Fiction Pool

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“The Whitening” is my first piece of fiction to be published. No surprise that it’s flash.

I’m grateful to the good folk at The Fiction Pool for accepting it, espcaily when I’m still not sure on the genre. Horror? Speculative? An average Tuesday?

And a special shout out to Vincent, who was there when the story began—back when it was supposed to be a joke.

How things have changed.

"Between the woods and frozen lake..." Creative Nonfiction at Barren Magazine

This story takes its title from Robert Frost’s “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening” for many, many reasons. It was first written for my kids in class a few years ago, completing a memoir assignment alongside them.

But it was more than that.

I was sharing the burden of vulnerability in writing. An exercise in revealing without revealing. Saying something at a slant, through omission, obscured, knowing only some would see the picture clearly. Knowing that those who did see at first glance were able to because of something shared. Something unspoken, but now brought to light.

Everyone else simply saw an interesting story.

This story is dedicated to those with eyes to see and is now live at Barren Magazine



Five New Poems at Rigorous Magazine

The following five (5) poems were just published at Rigorous Magazine .

  • “Little Africa” ~ a school poem

  • an open letter to the young man on the subway platform, looking back, hurt and disgusted ~ for when “whistling Vivaldi?” isn’t enough

  • honesty in advertising ~ exactly what the title says

  • the conversation with my pastor, after she posted my bail ~ midrash

  • exposure therapy ~ being an ally takes different forms

They seem to like me over there and I’m happy to be featured on their pages again.

Two (Dysfunctional) School Poems at Porcupine Literary

“an open letter to the secretary who asked how i haven’t taken to drink or schedule 1 narcotics like so many of our colleagues”

and

“an open letter to the white girls caught chanting “NIGGER” on Snapchat, again”

have just been published at Porcupine Literary: A journal by and for teachers and can be read here.


Both of these poems have one important thing in common: they are about events after which people said, “you CAN’T write about that,” while others said, “how have you NOT written about that yet?!”

Well here they are. And I’m breaking my own rule: these are 100% accurate to events in schools I’ve worked in over the years. If you know, you know.

#NoChill