the Colored page Review at Fahmidan Journal

This collection of a poetry brings tears to one’s eyes, whilst presenting a variety of social and philosophical questions drawn from the repository of Henry’s lived experience. As a whole, this collection can be summed up as; Haunting, bold and necessary. My only hope for this incredible collection is that it succeeds in changing narratives of oppression and inequality and remedies generations of inequality.

the Colored page’s first book review is out from Fahmidan Journal ! You can read the full thing here.

Read “when my colleagues here are employer confused me with the only other black teacher in the district” and “practice makes perfect,” two poems previously published in Fahmidan Journal

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Two Poems at Fahmidan Journal



Booking MEH for readings and such!

My Events and Services page is now live!

See where I will be in the world (in-person and virtually) and whether I can be useful to your community.

I am available for in-person and virtual readings, workshops, and professional developments for all age-groups. I’ve made appearances in elementary, middle, and high schools, at colleges/universities, in community centers and churches, as well as at national/international conferences.

“an open letter from the boy i was to the Man you have become” published in Shenandoah

People should write more about their guilt and shame. Of course I’m talking to myself. This is something I should do and did. I didn’t always suck in middle school, I wasn’t that kid, except on this day.

It’s strange to say I am “glad” to have this poem published. But I am happy that “an open letter from the boy i was to the Man you have become” has been published by Shenandoah and will appear in the Colored page.

Can never fully make amends, but I did, repeatedly, in high school and after. But the stench still sticks.

Selected for Kenyon Review's 2022 Writers Retreat


The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers partnered with the Kenyon Review to offer a summer writing experience for educators participating in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards! Educators with a student who received regional recognition in the 2022 Awards were eligible to apply for tuition coverage to attend an online, six-day workshop series to hone their writing and teaching practices with the Kenyon Review. They also received a $200 stipend to support their writing.

I'm one of those educators! More about that here.

“when asked how to avoid being seen as racist” at Identity Theory

I am happy to have my strange little sonnet “when asked how to avoid being seen as racist” published in Identity Theory .

I think sex with animals is problematic. I think racism is problematic. These two facts are at the root of this poem (which is based on a joke I was once told).

And if you thought this poem involves any drunk children having sex with goats, you should sue your elementary school, you’ll need the money to make up for your poor reading comprehension skills.

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Presenting and Reading at The Five Ponds Creative Writing Festival

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I will be presenting at workshop at the Five Ponds Creative Writing Festival.

Translating Trauma

Writers often sift through personal and global pain using it as inspiration for composition. This can be done as a means of processing and coping with trauma, as well as a means of making connections with others. But are there stories we should keep to ourselves? Are we sometimes telling stories that are not ours to tell? When is writing an unhealthy act of reliving trauma instead of remembering it in a creative, healing context? Through the lens of poetry, this workshop—part craft lecture, part unlicensed therapy session—will consider these questions, and provide participants with tools to construct personal guidelines to best care for themselves and others during the writing process.

It will be live and livestreamed. The whole festival is free. More details here.

“Out of my Hands” at Zone 3

Two of my kids suffered a tragedy that changed my life. I wrote a horrible poem and a couple of songs about it that never saw the light of day.

Over a decade later, while teaching a memoir unit, I wrote a longer work about it— the first piece of prose I had written since high school. Over the next few years it saw many revisions, many suggested revisions from journal editors, many night thinking.

It’s a story I read every year in my classes. I think I’ve not cried when reading it once.

I am proud to have “Out of my Hands” appearing within the pages of Zone 3.

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"Award Winning Poet Matthew E. Henry Reads for Gordon College"

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"Award Winning Poet Matthew E. Henry Reads for Gordon College"

Last fall, three-time Pushcart nominated poet Matthew E. Henry performed a poetry reading in the Barrington Cinema as a part of the Princemere Writers Series. Led by English Professor Mark Stevick, the Series invites renowned and emerging writers to Gordon College to share their art and engage with Creative Writing students. Henry also visited with Stevick’s Literary Journal class to discuss writing, editing, publishing, and teaching…[Click for full article]

Two poems in Discretionary Love

Some times people ask me why I don't write love poems. I tell them all my poems are love poems, but I know what they mean. So I show them ones like these two just published in Discretionary Love and they stop asking.

sweetness

before she began, she placed the glass jar between us—
filled with fresh, golden honey—and a sizable spoon.
homemade. an amateur apiarist, she kept a ready supply.

as she began, I remembered how my mother mixed 
honey with lemon, a pinch of salt. a folk remedy 
for sore throats, the beginnings of a cold. 

when she was through, I asked why. she thought 
I meant the amber on the table, not the gaslighting
she called brutal honesty. she said it was to help me 

swallow my feelings.  

an open letter to the one who should have got away

                                            …yet, somehow—
as the scorpion thrashed her pincers
and drowned—the frog survived,
flopped ashore, croaked himself
back to life. a week, a month later,
along the same muddy shore,
another barb-tailed arachnid
implored him for safe passage
across the stream. a ride
atop his slick, perforated back.
it’s not that he doesn’t remember.
it’s just his nature. he never learns.