Two Poems in Show Us Your Papers (Anthology)-- Currently in Pre-Sale

Two of my poems will appear in the upcoming anthology Show Us Your Papers:

“legacy” ~ on emails containing last wills and testaments

and

“we all have to make sacrifices” ~ on racial microaggressions against the people least likely to shoot up a public school.

From the Introduction of the anthology:

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Show Us Your Papers speaks to a crisis of identity and belonging, to an increasing sense of vulnerability amid rapid changes in the USA. While corporations wait to assign us a number, here are 81 poets who demand full identities, richer than those allowed by documents of every sort. Here are poems of immigration and concentration camps, of refugees and wills, marriage and divorce, of lost correspondence and found parents, of identity theft and medical charts. In an era where the databases multiply, where politicians and tech companies sort us into endless categories, identifying documents serve as thumbtacks. They freeze the dancing, lurching, rising and falling experience of our lives. The disconnect between our documents and our identities is inherent, reductive, frustrating, and, too often, dangerous. Yet we cannot live without them. In this anthology 81 poets offer a richer sense of our lives and histories—richer than any “official paper” allows. These lyric and narrative forms demand that readers recognize our full identities: personal, familial, national, and historical…

Introducing The WEIGHT Journal

Some English teacher friends and I have started a litmag for high school students (9th -12th grade) called The WEIGHT Journal.

 

It has been widely circulated on social media that Shakespeare likely composed Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and King Lear in the midst of the Black Death. Usually this factoid is shared as a challenge for writers to continue producing work in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic. No pressure.

Taking its title from the ending of Lear, The WEIGHT is a literary blog for high school students who may similarly find themselves in need of a creative outlet. Students with something heavy to get off their chest, and those bored out of their minds at home.

​We welcome all sorts of creative writing: poetry, flash fiction, short fiction, creative non-fiction, hybrid, and whatever else you have.

“The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
― William Shakespeare, King Lear

Submission guidelines:

We're looking for writing that has something honest to say. Something that releases the WEIGHT/WAIT. That's it. No topic is off-limits. This is not about being "school appropriate."

  • We are always accepting new submissions from 9-12 grade students (homeschoolers are welcome).

  • We are publishing on a rolling basis (as we read, review, and accept new material, goes up).

  • Please submit works not previously published elsewhere (your personal website/blog/social media do NOT count).

  • Please include a short bio (100 words max) about yourself, including things like where you are, what you do, any past publications, hope and dreams, glass half full/empty.

​Poetry: 1-3 poems, up to 6 pages of poetry

Flash Fiction: 1-2 pieces, up to 500 words each

Short Fiction: 1 piece at a time, max 2000 words

Creative Nonfiction: 1 piece at a time, max 2000 words

Something you can’t even classify: 1 piece 1 at a time, max 2000 words

​Email your submissions as a doc., docx., or pdf. attachment (not in the body of an email) to theweightjournal@gmail.com

[Forthcoming] Two More Sonnet-Like Poems Will Appear in The Amethyst Review

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Continuing my heretical (?) take on “unholy sonnets,”

[Say gravity is grace enough for god-]

and

[Say prayer’s correctly rubbing God’s back]

will be joining my other poems in The Amethyst Review: the former in April, the latter in May.

The Poetry Cafe's Review of Teaching While Black

Henry is an educator… who also feels deeply the frustrations incumbent upon being a Black teacher working in schools with a majority of white educators and students. God bless him for that, and even more so, for the frank, humorous, and compassionate poems in his memorable chapbook, Teaching While Black.

The good folks at The Poetry Cafe have posted their review of Teaching While Black online.

 

“Schizophrenia in G minor” — my only Valentine's Day poem

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Schizophrenia in G minor

when i awoke yesterday
and found you beside me
atlas’ shoulders seemed to settle

as sweet sweat matted hair
hugged your face
in a vertical halo

the classical reprints
adorning our walls
sighed in jealousy

and i was in love

today
you’re a fat
rat nasty cow
and i wish
you would die

 

happy valentine’s day

Poetry East , #53 "Love Poems" Fall 2004

 

Poem published in Take a Stand, Art Against Hate

“said the band-aid to the shotgun wound”

is being reprinted in Take a Stand, Art Against Hate: A Raven Chronicles Anthology.

This poem, originally published in Teaching While Black, explores everything wrong with the application of uncritical anti-bias trainings in public school settings. Or at least what I could fit into one long poem before my head exploded.

I proud to have it included in this anthology.

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Teaching While Black at Wellesley Books

I’m on my book-selling hustle. Been in contact with a few different stores and as of yesterday, Teaching While Black is now available for purchase at Wellesley Books (Wellesley, MA).

I was a METCO student in Wellesley. And now the local bookstore holds a book which is bracketed by two poems about my racial awareness and centeredness being formed in that town. For better or worse.


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Two poems at Dappled Things

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I did a stint as a Christian mystic. I reality, I just read a lot about Christian mysticism, mindfullness, contemplation, meditation, acedia, and a whole trove of related materials, attempting to find…something. The Desert Mothers and Fathers, philosophers and hermits, poets and academics.

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Of course such musing birthed poetry. And, somehow, Dappled Things’ found two of them worthy of publication.

“…as yourself” ~ an attempt to find the balance between “the Golden Rule,” “the Two Great Commandments,” and the mystic’s distrust of “Self.”

“the prophet speaks against Rilke” ~ an ekphrastic response to Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Ick bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug”

Two Poems Reprinted at Digging Press

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Digging Through The Fat: A Literary & Arts Journal for Cultural Omnivores republishes works from around the internet.

 
Community No 41.

Community No 41.

Two of my poems were selected for Community No 41.:

  1. “the surprising thing,” &

  2. “when asked what i learned in elementary school being bussed from Mattapan to Wellesley.”

    Both are included in my chapbook Teaching While Black.

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"Holding Peace" (CNF) published at How to Pack for Church Camp

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Every once in a while I write a short story, usually based on a real experience. A work of creative non-fiction (CNF). This one has been published by How to Pack for Church Camp.

This time I decided not to include names, to protect the guilty. I know some of the guilty are reading this right now. You went to this camp. You were in the room. You said these things. Hopefully you’re a better person now.

As for my unnamed friend: all my love, B. Now and forever.

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Sometimes submissions are an education. And sometimes you get published.

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When you write a poem entitled “an open letter to the white feminists holding a literary panel on Toni Morrison,” you don’t actually think anyone will publish it.

You send it out thinking, at the very least, some junior reader or part-time editor will have something to think about. Because following her sudden death, what writing conference would ever host a panel discussion about Toni Morrison, but not include one (1) Black woman on the dais? The one you attended. So you write a poem. And cast it upon the waters hoping it will do some good.

{It’s like writing a poem entitled “an open letter to the poetry editor of [name withheld on advice from counsel]” about a passive aggressive, racially charged exchange with an editor: no one will ever publish that poem, but those who read it might think about how they interact with their submitters of color after reading it. }

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And then you get an email saying that someone does want to publish a poem about well-meaning, but misguided white women, and you’re shocked.