Update

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MEH Updates: my new newsletter through Substack

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For about a year people have been asking me about a newsletter. I keep saying, “yeah, I’ll get around to something.” Now I finally have.

MEH Updates will be a (mostly) monthly newsletter about recent and upcoming events, publications, generally musings, and the like.

Could you access the same information by constantly checking in and refreshing my website multiple times a month? Of course. But I’ve been told that a newsletter sent directly to one’s inbox is an easier system for people.

You can subscribe by entering your email in the form.

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Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize winner!

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Well I can finally announce that my poem “the Banjo Player explains” was chosen by A Van Jordan as the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize winner!

The poem is an ekphrastic narrative based on Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Banjo Lesson: the painting which was the cover art for my first collection, Teaching While Black.


Poetry Editor Note

It’s a joy to present the selections for the 2023 Stephen Dunn Prize for poetry. The winning poem is “the Banjo Player Explains,” by Matthew E. Henry, selected by our poetry judge for this issue, A. Van Jordan. He writes:

In one of the most assured ekphrastic poems I’ve read in some time, ‘the Banjo Player Explains,’ grants a wish I’ve had since I first saw this Tanner painting: ‘I wish I could hear this lesson played out.’ The poem goes beyond the canvas and the framing of the two figures by “striking a balance between two worlds,” indeed. There’s also the perspective of experiential knowledge of the boy as man, an old man, looking back on a moment he will never forget, yet not initially knowing the significance of it in the moment. There’s great wisdom and a life lesson here.

Read it here
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Origin Stories: on the beginnings of The Third Renunciation

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After a reading in Minneapolis today, someone opened a copy of The Third Renunciation and asked about the dedication, which reads:

I was asked, “who was Chase to you?”

One of the first theological sonnets I wrote came out of processing his death. The sonnet, every draft, was terrible. Eventually, a decade later, I realized it was because some stories can't be told in 14 lines.

“Out of My Hands” was published by Zone 3 and is that story, and also is the beginnings of The Third Renunciation.

You can read it here.

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The Lives of Writers Podcast: Matthew E. Henry

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Listen to my interview at The Lives of Writes from Autofocus (in which I was previously published).

The Lives of Writers Website
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
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Interview with My Bad Poetry Podcast

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A podcast where I (painfully) discussed some of the very first poems I wrote in college. Heaven help us all.

You can read the poems discussed —"musing,” “she says it’s only in my head,” & “(at) fireworks on the 7th" — below.

As I mention in the podcast, there is a good chance that some people reading these are mentioned in the poems. Sorry about that.

Take a Listen (if you must)
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the Colored page on the Kickstart Farmington blog

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In his blog post “Art in the Roots, #6: Captains and Pilots,” Mitch Nobis reflects on how the political is always with us in all areas of life including, especially, education.

My poetry the Colored page is a part of those reflections.

More from the same good people

Featured
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Reading & Interview with Mitch Nobis an Wednesday Night Sessions

Pushcart Nomination from Pangyrus Literary Mag

I’m happy to announce that my poem "what i learned during Black history month" by billy, age 8 (or 18) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Pangyrus . You can read it below.

Collections forthcoming in 2023

I’ve been reminded how terrible I am at sharing news. So here’s an attempt to rectify that.

I have two collections forthcoming in 2023


The Third Renunciation - a full length collection from New York Quarterly Books (Spring 2023)

and

said the Frog to the scorpion - a chapbook from Harbor Editions (Winter 2023)!

More info to come about both in the coming months.