Reading & Interview with Mitch Nobis an Wednesday Night Sessions
I was pleased to sit down with fellow teacher-poet Mitch Nobis at Wednesday Night Sessions to read and discuss selections from Teaching While Black, and other school-related poems.
The set list:
stop talking
etymology
when asked why “all lives” don’t matter
an open letter to the white girls caught chanting “NIGGER” on Snapchat, again
an open letter to those wondering why I’ve called this the most racist place I’ve ever worked
re: your aryan princess in my class
(Also, my former beard was having a good hair day.)
Reading and Interview with Chewing the Gristle
In this episode of Chewing the Gristle, poets Al Black and Tim Conroy chat with the Bostonian teacher, poet, and editor, Matthew E. Henry. Listening to Matthew’s poetry, I wondered where this poet got his bravery. Did it fester in youth silently until it exploded with prophetic courage reacting to the pretense of equality in a country that still privileges white lives over black lives? Matthew's poems are as spiritual as baptism down by a river, as bloodletting as Macbeth, and as authentic as a burial. His poems from Teaching While Black and Dust and Ashes wield images and sounds that wake us with undeniable truth and pain. Matthew expressed himself as a young creative soul during primary school and high school by writing short stories. Though he teased that perhaps he wrote better as an elementary school poet than now…
Gotta love that picture...
On shaving my beard…
I'm still working on a poem about this (of course I am), but these tweets will have to do for now.
“twelve minutes a slave” published in Ploughshares
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!
[Say “what if?" is more dangerous than “why?"] at Fare Forward
One of my theological sonnets—[Say “what if?" is more dangerous than “why?"] was published over at Fare Forward.
Included in Nightingale & Sparrow's Top Ten of 2020 Microchapbook
The title says it all.
My tiny poem “first grade mural” was included in Nightingale & Sparrow's Top Ten of 2020 Microchapbook.
Buy MEH's poetry from MEH!
I finally figured out how to sell my collections directly to those good people brave (or crazy) enough to be interested in a copy.
While you can still buy direct from my publishers, Teaching While Black and Dust and Ashes can now go directly from my hands to yours.
Finalist in Sundress Publication's 2020 Poetry Open Reading
My full-length collection the Colored page—a semi-autobiographical follow-up to Teaching While Black—was a finalist in Sundress Publication's 2020 Poetry Open Reading Period.
One step closer to having this collection out in the world.
Dust and Ashes now available for purchase from Californios Press
Dust and Ashes, my new chapbook of ekphrastic poems, is now available for purchase from Californios Press!
Read samples and learn more here (also buy a copy).
Poem Nominated for a Pushcart Prize
I’m pleased to announce that Porcupine Literary nominated my poem “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” for the Pushcart Prize.
Maybe this is the time the powers that be will move me from a nominate to a recipient. But I’m honored nonetheless.
"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.
This Present Former Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature [Editor]
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.
Two Poems Reprinted in Pensive
Two of my poems were reprinted in Issue One of Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts, published by the Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service (CSDS) at Northeastern University.
You can read them starting on page 118.
Interview with Why We Write at Lesley University
From the show notes:
'Teaching While Black': a poet explores racism in the classroom
Matthew E. Henry, PhD, gives an unflinching portrayal of teaching while black in his debut poetry collection of the same name.
